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Ki Editor - an editor that operates on the AST

ki-editor.org

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Re: Ki Editor - an editor that operates on the AST

#71

Post by the__alchemist »

scriptsmith wrote: post #7

The "First-class syntactic selection" reminds me of my most used shortcut(s) in Jetbrains IDEs: the Expand / Shrink Selection. Ctrl + W Ctrl + Shift + W https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/working-with-source-code... It really changed my perspective on interacting with the 'text' of a file. VS Code, Zed, etc. have similar operations, but in my experience they expand and shrink too coarsely.

To me, it feels like Zed and VsCode perform most operations in a general way on the text; they don't seem to (in Python and Rust at least) have an understanding of the code structure in the way JB does. (And based on some digging on Ki the way it does as well?) So, I would bet they are using that text-based model, which would be hit/miss here.

Re: Ki Editor - an editor that operates on the AST

#72

Post by hudsonwillis »

enkursigilo wrote: post #8
scriptsmith wrote: post #7

The "First-class syntactic selection" reminds me of my most used shortcut(s) in Jetbrains IDEs: the Expand / Shrink Selection. Ctrl + W Ctrl + Shift + W https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/working-with-source-code... It really changed my perspective on interacting with the 'text' of a file. VS Code, Zed, etc. have similar operations, but in my experience they expand and shrink too coarsely.

Also available as `incremental selection` in Neovim via tree-sitter.

yep and most of these actions can be implemented with simple mappings based on https://github.com/nvim-treesitter/nvim-treesitter-textobjec...

Re: Ki Editor - an editor that operates on the AST

#73

Post by herrherrmann »

evelant wrote: post #15

I made the vscode integration for this. I feel bad that I haven’t contributed much since, it’s a really cool project. IMO it’s important to try to innovate in the foundational tools of our craft (editors, languages, tooling, OS, etc) which Ki does.

Thank you for that! I find it really daunting to try a new editor, but having a vs code extension as an entry point really helps me and increases the chances of trying it out soon!

Re: Ki Editor - an editor that operates on the AST

#75

Post by WickyNilliams »

aragonite wrote: post #54
sigbottle wrote: post #38

I feel so illiterate when it comes to AST editing sometimes. I understand what an AST is from a computer science perspective. But I've never worked on a huge software refactor before that required direct AST textobject editing. Maybe an indication of my skill level... The extent of my usage is having nice textobjects to easily interact with arglists and functions which aren't native to (neo)vim. Very cute and nice to…

> I guess it's hard for me to edit things that I don't see right in front of me or aren't super simple changes (like name changes). Or at least, basic things I can reason about (such as finding by regex then deleting by textobject or something). This is actually what's nice about tools like ast-grep. The pattern language reads almost like the code itself so you can see the transformation right in front of you (at lea…

Came here to recommend ast-grep too!

If your editor of choice supports an extension (vscode does for example) it's a very easy on-ramp for a better search/replace than regex offers. It's syntax-aware so you don't need care about whitespace, indentation etc. Very easy to dip your toes in where a regex would get complex fast, or require multiple passes.

I converted a codebase from commonjs to esm trivially with a few commands right after first installing it. Super useful.

I hope LLMs eventually start operating at this level rather than raw text. And likewise for them to leverage the language server to take advantage of built in refactorings etc

Re: Ki Editor - an editor that operates on the AST

#76

Post by leoc »

the__alchemist wrote: post #69
jasonjmcghee wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mine are: Cmd+Shift+V - Stacked clipboard, you can start typing to search or hit a number to choose what to paste (keeps everything you've copied/cut inside jetbrains for a while) Cmd+Shift+E - Recent locations, you can start typing to search - shows little buffers of where you've been recently Cmd+Shift+A - Action tab of the command palette - fuzzy search for any command (really the only shortcut you need, other tha…

Hero! I had not done my homework/have not been aware, but these all look fantastic! The stacked clipboard is something I periodically mentally complain about (Why is clipboard on every OS/tool I've used single item?) I will add one that are possibly more well-known: - ctrl + shift + F: Find text in any file - ctrl + N: Find types (structs, classes etc) - ctrl + shift + N: Find any file by name or path

Windows has had a pretty usable stacking clipboard for a while! You just have to activate it. Since you can pin thing into it it’s also quite useful as a rough and ready way to type special characters you use frequently.

Re: Ki Editor - an editor that operates on the AST

#78

Post by marssaxman »

sigbottle wrote: post #38

I feel so illiterate when it comes to AST editing sometimes. I understand what an AST is from a computer science perspective. But I've never worked on a huge software refactor before that required direct AST textobject editing. Maybe an indication of my skill level... The extent of my usage is having nice textobjects to easily interact with arglists and functions which aren't native to (neo)vim. Very cute and nice to…

Maybe, or maybe not. I think there are many different kinds of work all lumped together under the "software engineering" umbrella, and tools which are indispensable for some people can seem unimpressive or unnecessary to others. We're not all spending our time in the same way, working on the same kinds of tasks.

I don't find myself doing huge structural refactoring often enough that it would be worth my while to learn a specialized tool for doing it; I'm a quick typist, and it's easy enough to just blat through the changes by hand on the rare occasion such a thing is necessary. But I don't work on giant line-of-business apps or sprawling web services, and I can see someone who did a lot of that sort of work having a different take on the matter.

Re: Ki Editor - an editor that operates on the AST

#80

Post by nine_k »

aragonite wrote: post #54
sigbottle wrote: post #38

I feel so illiterate when it comes to AST editing sometimes. I understand what an AST is from a computer science perspective. But I've never worked on a huge software refactor before that required direct AST textobject editing. Maybe an indication of my skill level... The extent of my usage is having nice textobjects to easily interact with arglists and functions which aren't native to (neo)vim. Very cute and nice to…

> I guess it's hard for me to edit things that I don't see right in front of me or aren't super simple changes (like name changes). Or at least, basic things I can reason about (such as finding by regex then deleting by textobject or something). This is actually what's nice about tools like ast-grep. The pattern language reads almost like the code itself so you can see the transformation right in front of you (at lea…

While at it, https://github.com/semgrep/semgrep was around for several years, too.
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