Hello CodeGraph Team,
First of all, I'd like to thank you for the work you've put into CodeGraph. I've spent the last few days evaluating it as part of my AI-assisted development workflow, and I wanted to share some feedback that I hope is useful.
I should also mention that I used ChatGPT to help organize and refine this feedback, but the experience and observations below are based on my own testing.
My Development Environment
I'm a software developer who primarily maintains a large legacy ASP.NET Web Forms application written in VB.NET.
The project consists of:
- Hundreds of
.aspx pages
- Hundreds of
.vb code-behind files
- Hundreds of
.designer.vb files
- Telerik UI controls
- SQL Server
- ADO.NET
- .NET Framework 4.7.x
- JavaScript
- XML configuration
The application has evolved over many years and represents a fairly typical enterprise line-of-business system.
Why I Became Interested in CodeGraph
Legacy applications like this are exactly where AI assistants often struggle.
Modern projects have relatively clean architectures and excellent tooling.
Large Web Forms applications are different.
Developers frequently need to answer questions like:
- Where is this control used?
- What methods eventually call this function?
- Which pages depend on this business object?
- What will break if I change this method?
- Where is this value first assigned?
- Which classes ultimately interact with this database table?
These are graph problems.
When I discovered CodeGraph, I thought it might become one of the most valuable tools in my workflow because these are exactly the kinds of questions I ask dozens of times each day.
My Evaluation
Installation was straightforward.
I installed CodeGraph globally and integrated it with Claude Code.
The installation itself was successful (aside from a Windows permissions issue while updating Claude's settings file, which was easy enough to work around).
Once installed, I indexed my repository.
The indexing process completed successfully.
However, the resulting index contained only JavaScript, YAML and XML.
Claude correctly reported that the VB.NET and ASP.NET Web Forms files were not indexed because CodeGraph currently has no VB.NET parser.
That immediately explained why the generated graph contained almost none of my application's business logic.
The Opportunity I See
I'd like to encourage you to consider VB.NET support.
I completely understand that this is a significant engineering effort and not something that can simply be added overnight.
However, I genuinely believe there is an opportunity here.
Many enterprise applications still run on:
- ASP.NET Web Forms
- VB.NET
- WinForms
- WPF (VB.NET)
- .NET Framework applications
Although these technologies are no longer fashionable, they continue to power hospitals, insurance companies, manufacturers, banks, government departments and many other organisations.
Ironically, these are also the codebases where structural analysis provides the greatest value.
Modern C# developers already benefit from excellent tooling including Roslyn, Rider, ReSharper and sophisticated language servers.
Developers maintaining older enterprise systems often do not.
One Observation
During my evaluation I realised something that might already simplify part of the challenge.
ASP.NET Web Forms generates strongly typed .designer.vb files.
Those files already expose controls as strongly typed fields, creating a bridge between the markup and the code-behind.
Even if complete Web Forms understanding is a long-term goal, those generated files may provide a useful foundation for building structural relationships within the VB.NET codebase.
I don't know whether that aligns with your architecture, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
I'd Be Happy to Help
If VB.NET support ever becomes something you're interested in exploring, I'd be more than happy to help test it.
I have access to a large, real-world enterprise application that exercises many aspects of the Web Forms programming model, including:
- Large code-behind files
- Complex event-driven logic
- Telerik controls
- Designer-generated files
- Database interaction
- Business layer abstraction
- JavaScript integration
I suspect it would make a useful test bed for validating symbol extraction, call graphs and structural navigation.
Closing Thoughts
Regardless of whether VB.NET support is ever added, I wanted to thank you for building CodeGraph.
I think the project addresses a genuinely important problem: giving AI systems structural understanding of large codebases instead of relying purely on repeated text searches.
That's a direction I believe has tremendous potential.
Thank you again for your work, and I wish you continued success with the project.
Kind regards,
Lyall
Hello CodeGraph Team,
First of all, I'd like to thank you for the work you've put into CodeGraph. I've spent the last few days evaluating it as part of my AI-assisted development workflow, and I wanted to share some feedback that I hope is useful.
I should also mention that I used ChatGPT to help organize and refine this feedback, but the experience and observations below are based on my own testing.
My Development Environment
I'm a software developer who primarily maintains a large legacy ASP.NET Web Forms application written in VB.NET.
The project consists of:
.aspxpages.vbcode-behind files.designer.vbfilesThe application has evolved over many years and represents a fairly typical enterprise line-of-business system.
Why I Became Interested in CodeGraph
Legacy applications like this are exactly where AI assistants often struggle.
Modern projects have relatively clean architectures and excellent tooling.
Large Web Forms applications are different.
Developers frequently need to answer questions like:
These are graph problems.
When I discovered CodeGraph, I thought it might become one of the most valuable tools in my workflow because these are exactly the kinds of questions I ask dozens of times each day.
My Evaluation
Installation was straightforward.
I installed CodeGraph globally and integrated it with Claude Code.
The installation itself was successful (aside from a Windows permissions issue while updating Claude's settings file, which was easy enough to work around).
Once installed, I indexed my repository.
The indexing process completed successfully.
However, the resulting index contained only JavaScript, YAML and XML.
Claude correctly reported that the VB.NET and ASP.NET Web Forms files were not indexed because CodeGraph currently has no VB.NET parser.
That immediately explained why the generated graph contained almost none of my application's business logic.
The Opportunity I See
I'd like to encourage you to consider VB.NET support.
I completely understand that this is a significant engineering effort and not something that can simply be added overnight.
However, I genuinely believe there is an opportunity here.
Many enterprise applications still run on:
Although these technologies are no longer fashionable, they continue to power hospitals, insurance companies, manufacturers, banks, government departments and many other organisations.
Ironically, these are also the codebases where structural analysis provides the greatest value.
Modern C# developers already benefit from excellent tooling including Roslyn, Rider, ReSharper and sophisticated language servers.
Developers maintaining older enterprise systems often do not.
One Observation
During my evaluation I realised something that might already simplify part of the challenge.
ASP.NET Web Forms generates strongly typed
.designer.vbfiles.Those files already expose controls as strongly typed fields, creating a bridge between the markup and the code-behind.
Even if complete Web Forms understanding is a long-term goal, those generated files may provide a useful foundation for building structural relationships within the VB.NET codebase.
I don't know whether that aligns with your architecture, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
I'd Be Happy to Help
If VB.NET support ever becomes something you're interested in exploring, I'd be more than happy to help test it.
I have access to a large, real-world enterprise application that exercises many aspects of the Web Forms programming model, including:
I suspect it would make a useful test bed for validating symbol extraction, call graphs and structural navigation.
Closing Thoughts
Regardless of whether VB.NET support is ever added, I wanted to thank you for building CodeGraph.
I think the project addresses a genuinely important problem: giving AI systems structural understanding of large codebases instead of relying purely on repeated text searches.
That's a direction I believe has tremendous potential.
Thank you again for your work, and I wish you continued success with the project.
Kind regards,
Lyall