I think people will soon realize that code is a data structure, not text. Like a hash map or an array, its text representation is merely a human-readable interface to it. I predict the capabilities of IDEs will expand, and to make their state persistent, they will begin to store IDE-specific files in your source code directory. Eventually this will morph into the source code itself being stored in binary format and o…
When I see people talking about storing code in an AST representation or something similar, I see people who are focusing on the "happy path" and not really thinking about why code-as-text has been so sticky for half a century. (1) Code spends a huge amount of time in a non-parsable state. I need to be able to save code even when it's not currently parsable into a valid AST of the language I am writing. Sometimes I e…
Have you heard of https://dion.systems/ that was linked here recently? They are working towards going away from text as the source format.
It remains to be seen whether or not it is a good idea and/or if it will succeed if it is.
> (1)
I guess in something like Dion, you have a source format that doesn't allow syntax errors, since you are not editing something that can be in an invalid state (necessarily).