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Code Browser – A Folding Text Editor

tibleiz.net

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Re: Code Browser – A Folding Text Editor

#8

Post by shurcooL »

This is very interesting.

I've come to rely on Sublime Text's Cmd+R "Go To Symbol..." [1] (and Cmd+Shift+R "Go To Symbol in Project...") extremely strongly for code navigation. Instead of scrolling up or down to and _searching_ for a func I want, I just Cmd+R and go to it. Lookup, not search. It becomes second nature and so fast that other things become the bottleneck.

However, sometimes I notice its limitation of having just one scope, the top level symbol definitions. I wish there were other scopes accessible, like go to symbols within a function declaration. Or go to packages within my GOPATH (partially addressed by GoSublime's Cmd+.,Cmd+O "Browse Packages" [2]).

Basically, I think that being able to quickly select a scope and navigate to entries within it is very a powerful construct, and this Code Browser seems to address the multiple scopes aspect. That's why I think it's interesting.

[1] http://virtivia.com:27080/1l2gvqiyrty1g.png

[2] http://virtivia.com:27080/15j0bijsr586y.png

Re: Code Browser – A Folding Text Editor

#9

Post by nicklaf »

Interesting--the author developed his own language with LLVM with which to write the editor:

http://tibleiz.net/copper

My first reaction reading about the program was: since code folding (and other crutches intended to aid refactoring[1]) ought to be tightly coupled to the language (or even specific project) you're editing, you'd surely need the ability to write scripts, lest things begin to get clunky. Emacs immediately comes to mind, but inspecting the code revealed that the scripting language made available to the user is also a creation of the author.

I don't now much about how practical it is to develop a DSL using LLVM, but I would be fascinated to know how the process compares to Lisp in terms of productivity. Without having read the source code too carefully, one thing I'd be interested to know is whether or not the language written by the author (Copper) and the editor's scripting language are one and the same (as in Lisp). Is there an interpreter somewhere in the editor source? Or are plugins compiled or interpreted by Copper / LLVM at some point?

Of course, the author may also have his own motivations for choosing LLVM--for example, to learn.

All said, fascinating project!

[1] but hopefully not to merely make unwieldy code-bases navigable. (Yikes!)

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