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Introducing Dev Encyclopedia: A "Wikipedia", but for developers

Buzzpy 💡 on August 13, 2024

Hello fellow developers! Have you ever been stuck with technical jargon, concepts, or tool names? Sometimes, it's something you are sure that we k...

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Shanu • Aug 13 • Edited

I just came across the Dev Encyclopedia, and it looks like a fantastic addition to our developer toolkit! If you’ve ever struggled with understanding tech terms or concepts, this resource is a game-changer.

What’s Great About It:

Clear Definitions: Breaks down complex terms into simple explanations.
Practical Samples: Provides examples to help clarify concepts.
Open Source: Ad-free and created with the developer community in mind.

Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned pro, this tool is invaluable for demystifying tech jargon. Dive in and explore it here: Dev Encyclopedia on Product Hunt.

Want to Contribute? Check out their GitHub repository to add new terms or help improve the content.

Let’s support this project and make tech knowledge accessible to everyone. Upvote and share if you find it useful!

Buzzpy 💡 • Aug 13

Thanks a lot for the feedback @shanu001x !

Jishnu Krishnan • Aug 14

I had gone through the website, It was highly appreciated work bro. I did visited the github too. It would have been much more simpler if the data is stored in a database with a backend. Currently each values are hardcoded right. But I must appreciate you for doing this much of work to make our developing journey smoother👏

Buzzpy 💡 • Aug 14 • Edited

That's right @jishnu2k02 , but however, integrating databases and the backend to this website might increase loading times, right? Also, this website is currently working offline (when loaded once and except for the image and article links) so I think integrating databases might affect this feature.

Please tell me if I'm wrong, as mentioned earlier, I know nothing much about web development. Thanks!

Jishnu Krishnan • Aug 14

Instead of frequently changing values in code, it is recommended to keep the data in database. Anyhow it will work only with internet, but still developers will mostly or always connected to internet so that wouldn't be an issue.

I would suggest to create a form where anyone can add new words and meaning. You could make a database key like isListed to false when user submit the form and when the admin check the legitimacy of the word or meaning, then approve it and change the status to true.

This will encourage users to contribute as it will be easier than editing the code and sending pull request.

This is my opinion and if it's wrong please excuse me and ignore this idea🙂

Ski • Aug 15 • Edited

Storing it in database would mean a need to build a wiki-like contirbution platform. Storing it in github comes with benefit that it already is a platform enabling contirbution.

My take would be that it could be greatly improved if each topic was stored in separate markdown file, example content/code-smell/index.md. Then build script could index all markdown files and produce html output. This would enable easy and convenient contribution over the content levering git.

Musa Danjuma • Aug 14

But still integrating might be more likely to be good idea than none. Because it will give other developers a chance to add more resources with the approval of admins.

violentanirudh • Aug 14

Hi. I read the conversation. What if we store the data in a JSON file and then render it? You won't make unnecessary calls and using Fetch API you can read the JSON file, adding data will be easier too in JSON

Buzzpy 💡 • Aug 14

That'd be awesome! Someone suggested that on an issue too: github.com/Buzzpy/Dev-Encyclopedia...

violentanirudh • Aug 19

Do you mind if I refactor your UI?

violentanirudh • Aug 19

Well. I checked that one but it was server side, I built one which is client side, data will be added manually but it's formatted nicely and can be cached in the user's localStorage. Also check my Pull Request (violentanirudh). I added made some changes are "explain more" is removed, clicking on card will open the definition.

Pressing '/' which focus on searchbar make it easy to search different terms.

Lara Stewart - DevOps Cloud Engineer • Aug 16

The loading times should not really matter if you enable infinite scroll of some sort.****

Lara Stewart - DevOps Cloud Engineer • Aug 16

Yeah, I do feel that currently the values are hardcoded

Yakup Cemil KAYABAŞ • Aug 14

It will be great but there is needed a lot of effort to make like Wikipedia. I can write articles with resources, I have a huge archive. I have around 200+ books for computer science. But there is need for markdown support. Every article needs a template like in Wikipedia. I love the project, I hope we can make it.

KC • Aug 19

Wow @yakupcemilk that's a huge archive! Would appreciate if you can share some resources

Yakup Cemil KAYABAŞ • Aug 20

What resources do you want exactly? I can share some without didn't finish other projects. I have machine code books to higher level language books and other books about concepts and theories.

KC • Aug 21

Do u have resources for full stack development, and MERN stack? Would appreciate as well if you have web ml

Yakup Cemil KAYABAŞ • Sep 4

There are Packt Publishing's books about MERN and personal notes. I have around 7 resources right now. I can only share personal notes because of policies. How can I share these resources with you? Sorry for so late response, I was so busy. So sorry.

KC • Sep 5

@yakupcemilk would you mind we talk about this in private chat?

Yakup Cemil KAYABAŞ • Aug 20

Of course! When the other projects are done that I'm helping, I would love to help!

Ski • Aug 15 • Edited

Hi! I would suggest to store each topic in a separate markdown file. And then have a build script that iterates over all markdown files and converts it into html.

For example content/code-smell/code-smell.md, content/code-smell/code-smell-illustration-1.png

---
title: "Code smell"
---

content goes here

...

![](code-smell-illustration-1.png)

This way it will be easy to contribute to separate content without conflicts and easy to iterate html design without having to modify the content.

If you unsure how to do it but like the idea let me know, I could create a pr.

Nascif A Abousalh Neto • Aug 17

That, plus use a static site generator that already supports modern wiki-like features, like trackbacks and a graph view. This way a reader can learn not only about specific topics but also the relationship between them.
I’d suggest you take a look at Quartz. It works really well as a way to publish personal “second brains” (in particular for people using Obsidian). By by storing the content as markdown in GitHub, we could have a Community second brain for dev topics.

Jens Oliver Meiert • Aug 15

@buzzpy, when (exact date) did you launch this? Happy to feature the project on @frontenddogma (that is, on frontenddogma.com).

On another note, under the Frontend Dogma umbrella I also run WebGlossary.info. The project is growing steadily, and I think the glossary will hit 4,000 web dev terms by next year.

Mentioning not to sway the work on this (overlap ≠ identity), but in case that could be of interest also for other developers here, who look for reference sites.

Good luck and much success with the encyclopedia!

Buzzpy 💡 • Aug 15

Hello! I launched it on 13th August (at about 12.10 am).
And thanks for mentioning WebGlossary project! I'll check it out too. Good luck to you too!

MightyCoderX • Aug 13

Is there a particular reason for putting everything in the index.html file?

Buzzpy 💡 • Aug 13

Oh, that's my fault.
I tried connecting to external scripts once but for some reason it got messed up once deployed using Cloudflare. I forgot about trying again later, I will definitely look into that now.

Thanks a bunch! 🤍

Buzzpy 💡 • Aug 13

Update: This issue was fixed thanks to the contributors!

Sirineo Barila • Aug 14

You never know how useful is something till you test it out. This looks like a magic resource. I think this will be the first open source project in which I will contribute. 👍
@buzzpy Thanks a lot for your efforts.

Buzzpy 💡 • Aug 14

Can't wait to see your contributions!

Prakirth Govardhanam • Aug 19 • Edited

Thanks for thinking about the little guys around! I am one of those. Happily learning MERN stack yet flummoxed by the jargon some experienced folk use on the DEV platform 😅

Your altruistic purpose to build the app is even more impressive! Following you and this project right now! Thanks for making learning even more enjoyable! 😄

Just a thought - Would it be possible to make this a PWA ?

HARIPRASATH • Aug 14 • Edited

I totally love it I hope Developer Wikipedia to grow more in coming days the project initiated really appreciative I wish every domain expertise related to Computer Science contribute to this project and make it treasure for every developer

Wade Zimmerman • Sep 6

aren't most theorems cap theorems

Joachim • Aug 14

Why does the short description for "API" end with: ". For 12 year olds" lol?

I love this idea but I would say keep the humor to a minimum

Buzzpy 💡 • Aug 14

Haha, sorry for that! My very first idea was a simple website associated with my articles, but things took a turn and I forgot to update some things. Thanks for the feedback!

Lucas Pereira • Aug 18

It is fantastic.
Congratulations.

KC • Aug 18

@buzzpy are you interested in improving your existing Dev Encyclopedia by building it upon an existing Frontend framework? I'd be eager to help you on this. I'll leave comments in your github project

Buzzpy 💡 • Aug 18

Hello! We're currently in progress with integrating Astro framework to this, feel free to contribute!

ChesedGamesOnline • Aug 16

You could add some RSS to it to make it possible to make users see when a new item is added. I have one on my website chesedgames.online

Shrijal Acharya • Aug 14

Wow, love it. 👏

Ryan Els • Aug 14

Cool website 👍🏻

mari • Aug 14

i'm very happy with the Dev Encyclopedia, and I feel like it is one of the most helpful additions to a beginners toolkit due to its simplicity and focus. surprised this hadn't come along sooner!

Buzzpy 💡 • Aug 14

I'm surprised too, @coldramen22 . Looking at the feedback, I feel like everyone has wanted something like that at some point.

Yet again, it's some backend, python developer with no experience in web development, who built one 🤦‍♀️

Jonathan Bout • Aug 14

It'd be a good idea to buy a domain name for it, like encyclopedia.dev, it looks more professional and is probably easier to remember

Buzzpy 💡 • Aug 14

That's right, but .dev domain is unaffordable at the moment so I was thinking about devpedia.tech

lokesh singh tanwar • Aug 14

love this

Nikola Perišić • Aug 14

This is awesome.

gwennie • Aug 13

I like this! I also love the simplicity/clean look of it.

Marco Pineda • Aug 13

wow!

Ndeye Fatou Diop • Aug 13

Very nice initiative 🙏

Syed Muqeet • Aug 13

Thank you so much! I believe this will be incredibly useful for all developers, as it addresses a common aspect of their daily work. This is very much appreciated!

Buzzpy 💡 • Aug 13

Exactly, @syedmuqeet20 ! Glad you liked it~

Audrey Kadjar • Aug 13

really cool!!! Love the idea! I've bookmarked the site, and will try to contribute!

Buzzpy 💡 • Aug 13 • Edited

Looking forward to that!

Fritz, Diego G. • Aug 13

Muy, pero muy bueno. Muchas gracias por compartir

R A M • Aug 13 • Edited

Site is good , just make it mobile responsive for mobile devices

Buzzpy 💡 • Aug 13

Yes, of course, @ramonortegajr ! Let's do that. Someone has already added a PR in the repo so I hope this will be soon :)

Martin Baun • Aug 13

Nice. Simple is great! Simple but powerful is a motto of mine :)

Buzzpy 💡 • Aug 13

Glad you liked it! 🤍

KeyboardScript • Aug 13

What are the next step of actions that we are looking forward in this project?. I would like to contribute.

Buzzpy 💡 • Aug 13 • Edited

Hey there!
This project would continue adding new terms/concepts to the the list, and you can add them in the GitHub repository: Buzzpy / Dev Encyclopedia

Anshuman Mishra • Aug 13

Love the simple design and great idea.
Looking forward to checking the repo

Buzzpy 💡 • Aug 13

Thanks for the feedback! Can't wait to see you contributing!

Striperks • Aug 14

Cool!

Alternate Existance • Aug 13

Really cool project, love it

Manikandan • Aug 19

Good UI and Bad UX.!
Well done for UI 👏

Depicter • Aug 14

It's cool!

Eckehard • Aug 13

Nice Idea, just the layout looks a bit outdated. Is there really any need to use hundreds of large "Explain" buttons? The content boxes look like buttons, so it is evident that you can click on the box to get more information. Or use a mouse over effect to show the explanation and a click leads to further content.

A good layout will make this clear without any explanation. You do not neet to mark every button with a "click here", as the form already suggests that you can click a button. And users already have an expectation how a button works.

Sam Okuma • Aug 14 • Edited

I actually love it cuz of its outlook, its cool as its an encyclopedia.

Buzzpy 💡 • Aug 13

Noted with thanks!

raddevus • Aug 16 • Edited

This is a very nice web page.
This is a web page, not an app.
Only once you can add a new "article" (a user can post new content) does it become an app.
When I examined the github repo, I was boggled to see that all of the data is in the script.js file.
So, this is a static web page.

Let me know if you convert it to a web app. It will be really cool when you do that.

I'm actually stunned at how large your index.htm file is.

It's just a listing like the following via copy / paste for each individual term:

`<div class="card">
  <div class="card-title">Chaos Engineering</div>
  <div class="card-subtext">Practice of testing systems to withstand turbulent conditions</div>
  <button class="explain-button" onclick="showModal('chaosEngineering')">Explain</button>
</div>

<div class="card">
  <div class="card-title">Reactive Programming</div>
  <div class="card-subtext">Handling data streams and changes in real time</div>
  <button class="explain-button" onclick="showModal('reactiveProgramming')">Explain</button>
</div>

It's shocking, because no dev is ever going to type all of that in one time, because it is static.
This needs to be moved to a sqlite database so you can add new items quickly.
Would be a perfect React project.

Mathias • Aug 16 • Edited

Hi !
I really like what you have done it's a wonderful idea. I hope it spreads well in the community, new devs could really use this.
Just wanted to add a perspective : I think your website would really benefit from a JS framework. Thing is, you have so much data and you need to copy/paste the template every time you wan to add another card.
Worse, if one day you decide to change the layout, you would need to update every card one by one (!!).

I made a fork of how the project looks like with Vite using React. If you want to add data, you just have to add to the data.json file. If one day you decide to segment into categories it will be easier too.

I have not done the modal and there are a few things missing, but since this is only a proof of concept and not a final thing, I decided to stop at that :)

If you want to check it out : github.com/404mat/Dev-Encyclopedia...

Cheers !

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