Re: TechNote 2106
Re: TechNote 2106
- Subject: Re: TechNote 2106
- From: Chris Page <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2004 03:42:44 -0800
On Mar 5, 2004, at 19:00, Walter Ian Kaye wrote:
For example, an editor that edits programs instead of raw text could
unambiguously handle identifiers with arbitrary text in them. The
text would not be parsed. The programmer would effectively fill in
forms presented by the editor, where the editor knows what goes in
each field of each form. Ideally, this representation would be passed
to the compiler and there would be no parser at all, except for
importing legacy code.
Would it look like a form, or like Script Editor? And if the user
doesn't see the fields, how would s/he know where to click?
There are myriad good possibilities. It's not likely you'd want to have
little boxes around everything, though, if that's what you're worried
about. But today, you see
if some condition expression then ...
and you know you can edit "some condition expression" by clicking near
the point you want to edit. The same would be true for a program
editor.
All we need now is an editor that edits programs instead of text.
??
Most editors today edit text. Plain text, usually, despite editors that
color code or even apply fonts. The editors have no knowledge of how to
edit a program. They edit character streams. A "program editor" would
edit programs or code. The editor would work with some binary
representation, possibly a tree.
The appearance of source code as we typically see it would be only one
of many possible ways to visualize the program for users.
I'd really like to see Script Editor move in this direction, to harness
the power of computers to make programming easier.
I would love to help develop such an editor, by the way (in fact, see
my .sig, hint, hint :-).
--
Chris Page - Software Wrangler - engineer for hire
Gee, I was thinking you were keeping a low profile so as not be
barraged with questions like "OK, so what *really* happened at Palm?"
;)
-boo
ok, so what really happened? ;)
Well, there was a big layoff at palmOne, where I worked on Palm
Desktop. The layoff hit many people completely unrelated to Mac
support, but it also took out most of the people doing Mac work. I have
no insight into palmOne's future plans for Mac support, but palmSource
has announced they are not going to develop Mac syncing software for
the next major version of PalmOS. Third parties may take up the slack.
palmSource could change their minds, of course.
As ever, if Mac support is important to you, tell palmSource. (It
couldn't hurt to tell palmOne, too.)
--
Chris Page - Software Wrangler - engineer for hire
The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree,
is by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer professionals.
We cause accidents. -- Nathaniel Borenstein
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