6 ms·

For anyone interested in similar tools, Microsoft recently published a protocol[1] for this type of service, and an implementation[2] of it for VSCode+NodeJS.

For anyone interested in similar tools, Microsoft recently published a protocol[1] for this type of service, and an implementation[2] of it for VSCode+NodeJS. Swift also has a library[3] called SourceKit which does the same thing for Swift – it can run as an out-of-process daemon, and people have written integrations for Atom, Emacs, etc. to get autocomplete, syntax highlighting, def links, etc. [1]https://github.com/Microsoft/language-server-protocol https://github.com/Microsoft/language-server-protocol [2]https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode-languageserver-node https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode-languageserver-node [3]https://github.com/apple/swift/tree/master/tools/SourceKit https://github.com/apple/swift/tree/master/tools/SourceKit

nrc 10y ago
Indeed, the RLS uses that protocol to communicate with IDEs.
- favorited 10y ago
  Thanks, I totally missed that. That's pretty great – I thought it was a neat idea from MS, but I was worried it would get any traction. Glad to have been wrong!
  - steveklabnik 10y ago
    A lot of us in Rust-land are very big fans of VS: Code and what they're doing. I'm in the process of switching to it as my primary editor.
    - pjmlp 10y ago
      The work the community has been doing there is great. The Rust development experience in VS: Code is the only reason why I use it. Kudos to everyone.
      - bjz_ 10y ago
        Yeah, I switched to VS Code because of the nice Rust plugin, and the editor is now really growing on me! The Elm support is also getting quite good.
    - moosingin3space 10y ago
      Does VS Code have a decent Vim-style plugin yet?
      - Yackson 10y ago
        Try https://github.com/VSCodeVim/Vim https://github.com/VSCodeVim/Vim. It's being built my MS and they are quick to respond to feedback and pull requests.
wbond 10y ago
If it really pushes syntax highlighting to another process and uses JSON for serialization, that is going to impose a cap on editor performance.
- pcwalton 10y ago
  Rust's JSON serializer is really fast (~300 MB/s). http://erickt.github.io/blog/2014/12/13/performance-digression/ http://erickt.github.io/blog/2014/12/13/performance-digressi...
  - wbond 10y ago
    I'm imaging more along the lines of serializing editor state with each key press, encoding it, sending it to another process, having that process unserialize it, lex it, encode all of the cascading token changes and information about those tokens back into JSON, sending it back to the editor process which then has to decode the JSON and apply all of the token information to the in-memory representation as real overhead. It's great that Rust will decode and encode the JSON quickly (I've been keeping an eye on Rust's MSVC progress before I consider using it for a real-world project), but the project I work on cares about optimizations on the level of in-memory data layout and memory allocations. Moving syntax highlighting into a pluggable system would be a huge performance regression.
    - steveklabnik 10y ago
      There was a talk at RustConf by Raph Levien about his editor, Xi. It almost entirely uses JSON-RPC to communicate through a distributed architecture, and next-level speed is one of his design goals: https://confreaks.tv/videos/rustconf2016-a-modern-editor-built-in-rust https://confreaks.tv/videos/rustconf2016-a-modern-editor-bui... > I've been keeping an eye on Rust's MSVC progress before I consider using it for a real-world project The latest builds of MSVC claim to have native Rust syntax highlighting and autocomplete, I have not yet tried it myself: https://www.visualstudio.com/news/releasenotes/vs15-relnotes https://www.visualstudio.com/news/releasenotes/vs15-relnotes
markdog12 10y ago
The Dart team have done a similar thing
akio 10y ago
Elixir too. https://github.com/tonini/alchemist-server https://github.com/tonini/alchemist-server
wging 10y ago
The first one of these that I remember reading about is Marijn Haverbeke's Tern: http://ternjs.net http://ternjs.net
- kibwen 10y ago
  Fun fact: Marijn Haverbeke was one of the original Rust developers back in the pre-0.1 era.

nrc 10y ago

Indeed, the RLS uses that protocol to communicate with IDEs.

favorited 10y ago
Thanks, I totally missed that. That's pretty great – I thought it was a neat idea from MS, but I was worried it would get any traction. Glad to have been wrong!
- steveklabnik 10y ago
  A lot of us in Rust-land are very big fans of VS: Code and what they're doing. I'm in the process of switching to it as my primary editor.
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    The work the community has been doing there is great. The Rust development experience in VS: Code is the only reason why I use it. Kudos to everyone.
    - bjz_ 10y ago
      Yeah, I switched to VS Code because of the nice Rust plugin, and the editor is now really growing on me! The Elm support is also getting quite good.
  - moosingin3space 10y ago
    Does VS Code have a decent Vim-style plugin yet?
    - Yackson 10y ago
      Try https://github.com/VSCodeVim/Vim https://github.com/VSCodeVim/Vim. It's being built my MS and they are quick to respond to feedback and pull requests.

wbond 10y ago

If it really pushes syntax highlighting to another process and uses JSON for serialization, that is going to impose a cap on editor performance.

pcwalton 10y ago
Rust's JSON serializer is really fast (~300 MB/s). http://erickt.github.io/blog/2014/12/13/performance-digression/ http://erickt.github.io/blog/2014/12/13/performance-digressi...
- wbond 10y ago
  I'm imaging more along the lines of serializing editor state with each key press, encoding it, sending it to another process, having that process unserialize it, lex it, encode all of the cascading token changes and information about those tokens back into JSON, sending it back to the editor process which then has to decode the JSON and apply all of the token information to the in-memory representation as real overhead. It's great that Rust will decode and encode the JSON quickly (I've been keeping an eye on Rust's MSVC progress before I consider using it for a real-world project), but the project I work on cares about optimizations on the level of in-memory data layout and memory allocations. Moving syntax highlighting into a pluggable system would be a huge performance regression.
  - steveklabnik 10y ago
    There was a talk at RustConf by Raph Levien about his editor, Xi. It almost entirely uses JSON-RPC to communicate through a distributed architecture, and next-level speed is one of his design goals: https://confreaks.tv/videos/rustconf2016-a-modern-editor-built-in-rust https://confreaks.tv/videos/rustconf2016-a-modern-editor-bui... > I've been keeping an eye on Rust's MSVC progress before I consider using it for a real-world project The latest builds of MSVC claim to have native Rust syntax highlighting and autocomplete, I have not yet tried it myself: https://www.visualstudio.com/news/releasenotes/vs15-relnotes https://www.visualstudio.com/news/releasenotes/vs15-relnotes

markdog12 10y ago

The Dart team have done a similar thing

akio 10y ago

Elixir too. https://github.com/tonini/alchemist-server https://github.com/tonini/alchemist-server

wging 10y ago

The first one of these that I remember reading about is Marijn Haverbeke's Tern: http://ternjs.net http://ternjs.net

kibwen 10y ago
Fun fact: Marijn Haverbeke was one of the original Rust developers back in the pre-0.1 era.