A shrine to deleted code

Each time I’m deleting some code I’m thinking about the time and effort that was spent writing it.

Even if with modern tools and techniques code is easier and faster to write, each line removed still took some effort to be created.

And this effort is now no more.

I wanted a kind of memento mori, a shrine to remember the code that is now removed.

Here it is:

This simple script work on a git repository: each time you open the page it will fetch a randomly deleted line and will display it.

It requires Ruby and Rack.

To run it:

PATH_TO_GIT_REPO='path/to/your/git/dir' memento.ru

Then open your browser at http://localhost:9292

Code is a single file, under MIT license, so have fun and ping me if you do something interesting with it.

memento.ru

unless ENV.key? 'PATH_TO_GIT_REPO'
  raise 'Need a PATH_TO_GIT_REPO env parameter'
end

PATH_TO_GIT_REPO = ENV['PATH_TO_GIT_REPO']
STDOUT << "Specified git repo dir is [#{PATH_TO_GIT_REPO}]\n"
STDOUT << "Full git repo dir is [#{File.expand_path(PATH_TO_GIT_REPO)}]\n"

unless File.directory?(PATH_TO_GIT_REPO)
  raise "Path [#{PATH_TO_GIT_REPO}] is not a directory"
end

check_git_repo = `git rev-parse --is-inside-work-tree --git-dir=\"#{PATH_TO_GIT_REPO}\"`
unless check_git_repo.split("\n")[0] == 'true'
    raise "Path [#{PATH_TO_GIT_REPO}] does not seem to be a git repo"
end
STDOUT << "Dir is a git directory \\o/\n"

Dir.chdir PATH_TO_GIT_REPO

# Identify lines that looks like a git line deletion
LINE_FILTERING_REGEX = /\A\-([^-])(.*)\z/

require 'time'

class Memento

  def find_content
    number_of_commits = `git rev-list --count MASTER`.split("\n")[0].to_i
    commit_rank = rand(number_of_commits + 1)
    all_lines = `git log -p --skip=#{commit_rank} --max-count=1`.split("\n")
    interesting_lines = all_lines.select do |line|
      line.match(LINE_FILTERING_REGEX)
    end
    if interesting_lines.length == 0
      return nil
    end
    line_index = rand(interesting_lines.length)
    # Remove the '-' at the beginning of the line
    content = interesting_lines[line_index][1..-1]
    # Fetch the commit date
    date_string = 
      `git log --pretty=format:"%aI" --skip=#{commit_rank} --max-count=1`.
      split("\n")[0]
    date = Time.iso8601(date_string)
    {content: content, date: date}
  end

  def call(env)
    # Loop until we find a result
    until((result = find_content))
    end
formatted_result = <<-HTML
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <title>Deleted code memorial</title>
    <style>
      body {
        background: black;
        color: white;
        text-align: center;
        font-family: Copperplate, "Copperplate Gothic Light", fantasy;
      }
      #gitContent {
        padding-top: 10%;
        padding-left: 20%;
        padding-right: 20%;
        padding-bottom: 5%;
        font-size: 36px;
      }
      #gitDate {
        font-size: 16px;
      }
    </style>
  </head>
  <body>
    <div id="gitContent">&#x1f56f;<br>#{result[:content]}<br>&#x1f56f;</div>
    <div id="gitDate">Deteted on #{result[:date].strftime('%A %B %e %Y %H:%M:%S')}</div>
  </body>
</html>
HTML
    [200, {"Content-Type" => "text/html"}, [formatted_result]]
  end
end

run Memento.new