5 ms·

Thanks for the information. It is legitimately interesting. But while it is a neat idea, the difference seems to be largely inside-baseball. Sure, we're dealing

Thanks for the information. It is legitimately interesting. But while it is a neat idea, the difference seems to be largely inside-baseball. Sure, we're dealing with text, but we can still inspect our code quite well, and we can do much of the same sort of stuff. In any case, I don't really want my editor editing sexps. The moment my editor is working with sexps rather than characters, it's no longer a general-purpose tool.

lispm 10y ago
It feels very different. Imagine the editor and the runtime work on the same data: EDIT <-> data <-> EVAL In GNU Emacs it looks like this: Emacs EDIT -> text -> Emacs SAVE FILE SBCL LOAD FILE -> SBCL READ -> SBCL EXECUTE or Emacs EDIT -> text -> Emacs TRANSFER to SBCL -> SBCL READ > SBCL EXECUTE -> SBCL generate TEXT -> SBCL TRANSFER to Emacs -> Emacs DISPLAY -> text With presentations it looks for the user that the Emacs side knows the data for the text. That's a lot of indirection, a lot of conversions, different runtimes, etc. S-Edit feels like working with clay. A text editor feels like working with instruments, manipulating something which then manipulates the clay and you are watching the result through goggles.
- qwertyuiop924 10y ago
  I am aware of that indirection, but it never really shows up, or gets in my way. Maybe I'm missing something. Could you link me some information about S-Edit? I can't find anything on it, and it might help me understand what you mean.
  - lispm 10y ago
    http://www.textfiles.com/bitsavers/pdf/xerox/interlisp/3101273_InterlispD_2_Oct85.pdf http://www.textfiles.com/bitsavers/pdf/xerox/interlisp/31012... Chapter 16 describes DEdit, the display oriented structure editor of Interlisp-D. ALso see for general philosophy of interactive Lisp systems this article from 1978 (!!!): http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/interactive_c/bib/Sandewall-1978.pdf http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/interactive_c/b...
    - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
      Neat. But actually, I find that mechanism quite unpleasant, and one I wouldn't like working with. I'm sure it's quite powerful, but so is Vim, and I never really "got" Vim either. I would, in fact, argue that manipulating text has advantages over direct object manipulation: the first of which is that you can more directly edit text, whereas the DEdit interface is all about executing commands on objects. Secondly, you can apply useful transformations to text which don't necessarily make sense to apply to raw datastructures (search + replace, regexes, other handy transforms). Finally, many of the advantages of manipulating a pure datastructure can be had in text as well: see paredit. But that's just me. You use your cool lispm tools, I'll resign myself to never acheiving ultimate productivity. But I was resigned to that already, pretty much.
      - crististm 10y ago
        Text is not "raw data structure" and you may want to think twice that by manipulating text you touch the "data". From the sidelines, your approach is "all I have are nails and all I need is the biggest hammer you can get me".
        qwertyuiop924 10y ago
        Text is a raw data structure, it's just not the one that's used behind the scenes: Everything is a datastructure. And actually I do touch the data by manipulating text. >From the sidelines, your approach is "all I have are nails and all I need is the biggest hammer you can get me". From my perspective, my approach is "that development environment sounds really unpleasant, and while I can appreciare the elegance, I'm having trouble finding the relative upshot."
        crististm 10y ago
        When your editor's cursor hovers over "transistor T1" do you in fact touch the transistor on the board over your desk, the transistor in the schematic diagram, or only the text that happens to be "1T rotsisnart" spelled backwards (with no underlying meaning that is)? Data representation is not the data. It's just this: "re" presenting. And when this representation is disconnected from the source by means of showing only the raw text and not allowing access to the source you get what you describe as "unpleasant". You may find it enjoyable to work only with raw text but you're missing out on working with what that text is supposed to represent.

lispm 10y ago

It feels very different. Imagine the editor and the runtime work on the same data: EDIT <-> data <-> EVAL In GNU Emacs it looks like this: Emacs EDIT -> text -> Emacs SAVE FILE SBCL LOAD FILE -> SBCL READ -> SBCL EXECUTE or Emacs EDIT -> text -> Emacs TRANSFER to SBCL -> SBCL READ > SBCL EXECUTE -> SBCL generate TEXT -> SBCL TRANSFER to Emacs -> Emacs DISPLAY -> text With presentations it looks for the user that the Emacs side knows the data for the text. That's a lot of indirection, a lot of conversions, different runtimes, etc. S-Edit feels like working with clay. A text editor feels like working with instruments, manipulating something which then manipulates the clay and you are watching the result through goggles.

qwertyuiop924 10y ago
I am aware of that indirection, but it never really shows up, or gets in my way. Maybe I'm missing something. Could you link me some information about S-Edit? I can't find anything on it, and it might help me understand what you mean.
- lispm 10y ago
  http://www.textfiles.com/bitsavers/pdf/xerox/interlisp/3101273_InterlispD_2_Oct85.pdf http://www.textfiles.com/bitsavers/pdf/xerox/interlisp/31012... Chapter 16 describes DEdit, the display oriented structure editor of Interlisp-D. ALso see for general philosophy of interactive Lisp systems this article from 1978 (!!!): http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/interactive_c/bib/Sandewall-1978.pdf http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/interactive_c/b...
  - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
    Neat. But actually, I find that mechanism quite unpleasant, and one I wouldn't like working with. I'm sure it's quite powerful, but so is Vim, and I never really "got" Vim either. I would, in fact, argue that manipulating text has advantages over direct object manipulation: the first of which is that you can more directly edit text, whereas the DEdit interface is all about executing commands on objects. Secondly, you can apply useful transformations to text which don't necessarily make sense to apply to raw datastructures (search + replace, regexes, other handy transforms). Finally, many of the advantages of manipulating a pure datastructure can be had in text as well: see paredit. But that's just me. You use your cool lispm tools, I'll resign myself to never acheiving ultimate productivity. But I was resigned to that already, pretty much.
    - crististm 10y ago
      Text is not "raw data structure" and you may want to think twice that by manipulating text you touch the "data". From the sidelines, your approach is "all I have are nails and all I need is the biggest hammer you can get me".
      - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
        Text is a raw data structure, it's just not the one that's used behind the scenes: Everything is a datastructure. And actually I do touch the data by manipulating text. >From the sidelines, your approach is "all I have are nails and all I need is the biggest hammer you can get me". From my perspective, my approach is "that development environment sounds really unpleasant, and while I can appreciare the elegance, I'm having trouble finding the relative upshot."
        crististm 10y ago
        When your editor's cursor hovers over "transistor T1" do you in fact touch the transistor on the board over your desk, the transistor in the schematic diagram, or only the text that happens to be "1T rotsisnart" spelled backwards (with no underlying meaning that is)? Data representation is not the data. It's just this: "re" presenting. And when this representation is disconnected from the source by means of showing only the raw text and not allowing access to the source you get what you describe as "unpleasant". You may find it enjoyable to work only with raw text but you're missing out on working with what that text is supposed to represent.