Include links to source code in documentation

[mtharrison]

Describe the solution you'd like
For someone who's learning about the internals of node, it's useful to know exactly where in the codebase certain functions are implemented. I think it would be nice if the node docs linked say a function (like setTimeout) to the line in source code (on Github perhaps) where that function is implemented.

How it works in rust docs

Rust doc does this and I think it's a really nice feature that helps those wishing to dig deeper but isn't so intrusive to confuse or overwhelm newcomers.

How it might work for node docs

[Trott]

@nodejs/documentation @nodejs/website

[devsnek]

we wouldn't be able to reliably do this unless we switched to some form of inline documentation. at a minimum some tag like // @source timers.setImmediate would be needed.

[rubys]

Live example from Rust: try_reserve.

Rails does something similar: Rails.env.

Links to GitHub are appealing, but would require the build process to get the final commit hash (example from Rails: rails/rails@fc5dd0b). Rust appears to take a different path: produce a syntax highlighted set of pages that is published with the documentation, and provide links into that.

While this is clearly a non-trivial amount of work, I agree that it would be very useful, and would be fun to develop. I'll try to create a small proof of concept in the next week or two.

[mtharrison]

@rubys cool! Let me know if I can help in any way.

[refack]

Fixed in #22405 (comment) By 6046570

[mtharrison]

Awesome. Thanks so much for working on this @rubys!