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Ask HN: More “experimental” UIs for editing/writing code?

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Re: Ask HN: More “experimental” UIs for editing/writing code?

#61

Post by khitchdee »

Here is an editor for C I'm in the process of writing with a Modal, keyboard-only interface. It features a 3 column source code display format which is different from the traditional single column format. Also, there are on-screen controls such as menus, toolbars, navigation windows etc. The entire screen is used to display source code and keystroke sequences are used for navigation. In particular code folding is very efficient. https://github.com/Rohit-Agarwal-Khitchdee/Modal-GUIs

I've defined a couple of source code navigation constructs above the language level that are embedded inside comment blocks.

While I've written this editor for my own use, I've made it available as an open-source repository Github. It is experimental. The source code is well documented and easy to modify for your own purposes.

Re: Ask HN: More “experimental” UIs for editing/writing code?

#62

Post by dzink »

ilaksh wrote: post #57
mentos wrote: post #25

Check out Unreal Engine visual scripting using blueprints

Unreal Engine Blueprints are probably the leading edge of practical software engineering right now. One of the core problems with programming is that anything that replaces complex colorful text editing is subconsciously attributed to being for users or beginners and therefore programmers do not want to be associated with it. This is the main thing holding back software engineering -- most programmers refuse to use t…

After experiencing xcode and the mix of gui and code needed to build iOS apps, I realized that having mixed medium makes it hard to figure out how to do something if you haven’t done it before and need examples.

Using code alone allows for fast productivity because you can easily search and replace where needed. If you need to find out how to do something, you search the web and see examples. So your productivity speeds up substantially because you have all components in front of you to give you all necessary context at once. In XCode if there is something that requires a gui interaction to work, there are idiosyncrasies: some drag and drop needed or some deeply nested value in some third priority field that you don’t know about and you’re banging your head against a wall for each piece of functionality. Code puts everything on the same visibility level reachable through search (like a hash table). Gui alone also forces you to explore all fields and then experiment. But both mixed is hard.

Re: Ask HN: More “experimental” UIs for editing/writing code?

#63

Post by disqard »

I created a text-free visual programming language where the program is specified using Programming By Demonstration.

It's called BlockStudio (https://www.blockstud.io) and other people have used it to make some nice little games and animations:

https://blockstud.io/profile/15572

Re: Ask HN: More “experimental” UIs for editing/writing code?

#64

Post by 6510 »

jph wrote: post #11

Experimental UIs for editing/writing code that I would love to see: 1. Highlight code interrelations. Example: click in a function, and the UI displays related code, along with indicators of the timing of relation (e.g. caller vs. callee), type of relation (e.g. override v. delegate v. strategy), strength of relation (e.g. 80% of the time function "f" is called, then function "g" is called), etc. 2. Collaborate on co…

> I want to see my team's comments within my typical editor

ahh, I remember looking at some old code that was mostly casual email-like threaded discussion between developers as comments. It explained the why of things and one could immediately start working on suggestions. It also preserved the mood. Even without changing anything one could drop a few lines and say hi 500 years later. Explain how we do such things nowadays and you have a contribution.

Re: Ask HN: More “experimental” UIs for editing/writing code?

#65

Post by 6510 »

pella wrote: post #20
pella wrote: post #17

- like https://www.liquidtext.net/ for program codes ? - or Flow-based programming ? --> https://github.com/topics/dataflow-programming

unit: Next Generation Visual Programming Platform: https://github.com/samuelmtimbo/unit - A code drawn in unit is simply a Directed Graph. - Programming can be partially performed by Gesture and by Voice.

This makes me want data gloves

Re: Ask HN: More “experimental” UIs for editing/writing code?

#66

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

marttt wrote: post #60

Not exactly "experimental", considering the Unix heritage, but -- line editors. "I've seen [visual] editors like that, but I don't feel a need for them. I don't want to see the state of the file when I'm editing." -- Ken Thompson, on the superiority of ed to visual editors. Summarized by Peter Salus in A Quarter Century of UNIX (Addison-Wesley, 1994). Definitely a blast from the past, but I do think line editors may…

Home computers (and, later, certain environments for DOS) used to have you enter programs line by line in this fashion:

  10 PRINT "HELLO, WORLD"
  20 GOTO 10
You would add or edit a line by using appropriate numbering:

  15 PRINT "HELLO EDIT"
And you could get the full program with:

  LIST
Does this count as line editing?

Re: Ask HN: More “experimental” UIs for editing/writing code?

#68

Post by sitkack »

efortis wrote: post #24

Here's a nice document with many programming interfaces by Johnathan M. Edwards 1948 Plugboards 1949 Keypunch 1963 Teletype 1970 VT05 1980 Symbolic Lisp 1980 Smalltalk 1986 Boxer 1987 Self 1987 HyperCard 1987 Alice Pascal 1991 Visual Basic 1991 AgentSheets 1994 SK8 1996 Squeak/eToys 2001 Eclipse 2003 Flash MX 2005 Scratch … https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vSPuf3eQ2tlC...

The original refactoring browser/editor was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VisualAge it was later Open Sourced as Eclipse but it predates it by over a decade.

Re: Ask HN: More “experimental” UIs for editing/writing code?

#69

Post by intelVISA »

ilaksh wrote: post #57
mentos wrote: post #25

Check out Unreal Engine visual scripting using blueprints

Unreal Engine Blueprints are probably the leading edge of practical software engineering right now. One of the core problems with programming is that anything that replaces complex colorful text editing is subconsciously attributed to being for users or beginners and therefore programmers do not want to be associated with it. This is the main thing holding back software engineering -- most programmers refuse to use t…

BPs are a weird case, its decent UX and good accessibility tricks a fair few non-programmers into a lot of subtle footguns, and sometimes in the pursuit of avoiding writing a few lines of code they will opt to handicap themselves with spaghetti monsters.

https://blueprintsfromhell.tumblr.com/

Re: Ask HN: More “experimental” UIs for editing/writing code?

#70

Post by intelVISA »

TheTaytay wrote: post #5

I don’t know that this is exactly what you mean, but games that come with editors often push the boundaries here a bit because their domain is limited and their audience is not (initially) expert. The Warcraft III editor was essentially spitting out Scripting engine functions under the hood, but the UI presented it much more approachably. I am sure modern equivalents do this even better, but I remember being impresse…

I loved the Wc3 editor as a kid, reversing obfuscated JASS from all the protected maps to try and learn stuff was like IDA Pro to 9 y/o me.
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