Programmer Tooling Beyond Plain Text • Hacker News Board

Re: Programmer Tooling Beyond Plain Text

#71

Post by coldtea » Wed, May 06, 2015, 8:18 PM UTC

ori_b wrote: post #70

coldtea wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Once out of the newb phase. Once I've fully grokked the language and I've had enough ramp-up that I'm in "the zone" it's nearly effortless to type syntax-perfect code on my 1st attempt. Even getting built-in library calls and macros right, on 1st attempt, becomes nearly effortless, once in that frame of mind. And yet, it's this "nearly" that creates all the huge C buffer overflow and memory corruption bugs...

Are you suggesting that syntax errors create memory corruption?

Quoting: "even getting built-in library calls and macros right, on 1st attempt, becomes nearly effortless"...

Getting the syntax to parse != getting the correct syntax (meant for the job).

Even an off by one error in a library call can create memory corruption. Preprocessor macros? They can fuck everything if done wrongly.

Re: Programmer Tooling Beyond Plain Text

#72

Post by ori_b » Wed, May 06, 2015, 9:15 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #71

ori_b wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting that syntax errors create memory corruption?

Quoting: "even getting built-in library calls and macros right, on 1st attempt, becomes nearly effortless"... Getting the syntax to parse != getting the correct syntax (meant for the job). Even an off by one error in a library call can create memory corruption. Preprocessor macros? They can fuck everything if done wrongly.

Those are semantic errors, and a language aware editor will not fix them.

Re: Programmer Tooling Beyond Plain Text

#73

Post by coliveira » Thu, May 07, 2015, 12:18 AM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #15

coliveira wrote: post #7

colorForth adds at least the color dimension to a programming language. Words have different meaning depending on the color used. This reduces the amount of punctuation and the need for "reserved" words as we see in traditional languages.

Sounds awful. What about people who are color-blind? How are you going to read it out to yellow-somoene across the purple-room?

This is just a display issue, you could display text in different styles such as underlined or bold, for example. A good text editor can easily do this.

Re: Programmer Tooling Beyond Plain Text

#74

Post by mkramlich » Thu, May 07, 2015, 3:47 AM UTC

girvo wrote: post #60

mkramlich wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

again... I hear you. been there, done that, have the T-shirt, over 35 years of coding in multiple domains, including GUIs, graphics, games, code-driven visual layouts, etc. and I'm saying with a low-overhead deterministic-optimized editor like vim, and the right person at the keyboard, this can be done very quickly and accurately. and again, to continue your example, the hard part is not getting the syntax correct it…

I don't disagree with you, but: > non-lame programmers How many programmers are out there that are "lame"? Honestly, I still to this day work with code written by developers with years of experience who still get syntax wrong. Often I forget that most skills follow a bell-curve, and most developers are not one-with-their-machine-and-language -- hell, even I'm probably not, although some days I might feel like it. I t…

> How many programmers are out there that are "lame"?

from a few decades of observation in the wild, I'm sad to say that it is a surprisingly large percentage. the market demand for programmers seems to exceed the supply of those of us who truly can.

Re: Programmer Tooling Beyond Plain Text

#75

Post by cheery » Thu, May 07, 2015, 6:56 PM UTC

BoppreH wrote: post #10

I've been working on a Structured Code Editor for a couple of years: https://i.imgur.com/wvcduDk.png (in the picture above "string" is selected, and "find" is slightly highlighted because its on the same level. this helps visualize the tree and plan your movements) It actually started as my final project during undergrad. Here's my 78-page thesis on it (unfortunately Portuguese, but has English pictures): https://pro…

I consider vim as a tarpit because it accelerates writing text without syntactic recognition. That is, it may inhibit reception of a better programming tool by being just too well designed for what it is used for.

I have personally invested my time in the subject before with varying success. I'd like to see, study and try out your editor, perhaps even to contribute into it.