5 ms·

Can we have an IDE that let's us use our favourite syntax with other languages, please? Auto-correct, suggest syntax, advise on proper usage/best practice/pitfa

Can we have an IDE that let's us use our favourite syntax with other languages, please? Auto-correct, suggest syntax, advise on proper usage/best practice/pitfalls in target language. We already have autocomplete, stubs, and smart guessing which library I might need to include. People probably repeat the same typical mistakes thousands of times each day as they transition between languages. So just allow us to use fundamental programming concepts and take care of the details for me! If we were able to use our syntax of choice, and "reformat" existing code to our preference, we would probably all be much more inclined to move on to newer languages and thus advancing the field much faster. "Looks like you're coming from VBA, remember in this language arrays start at 0..."

sharpercoder 10y ago
...and commit in the syntax of choice of target repo automatically as well.
hardwaresofton 10y ago
Theoretically this seems possible with Haxe (http://haxe.org/manual/introduction-what-is-haxe.html http://haxe.org/manual/introduction-what-is-haxe.html). It seems possible to write something that went from Python -> Haxe -> Java? Right now all I know for sure is that Haxe offers Haxe -> Python in sourcecode (though an AST would be better, probably), and Haxe offers Haxe -> C++... Generally, it might make more sense to go from AST to AST then back to source code or something, if you didn't need to see the source code after. I personally appreciate that different languages have different syntax. In some languages it doesn't matter (because they're so close anyway), but across large gulfs there are non-negligible differences in productivity, IMO. If I need to write lots of regexes and do some small scripting or write something no one will understand later, perl's syntax might shine there, it would be bad (I think) to get into the habit of writing in one syntax or with one syntax when there are better syntaxes that might cut down on writing time for the job... Of course, there is the benefit of cutting down unnecessary writing by using perl INSTEAD of something like Java by using this idea...
- hardwaresofton 10y ago
  *AST -> AST -> vm/interpreter bytecode/machine code

sharpercoder 10y ago

...and commit in the syntax of choice of target repo automatically as well.

hardwaresofton 10y ago

Theoretically this seems possible with Haxe (http://haxe.org/manual/introduction-what-is-haxe.html http://haxe.org/manual/introduction-what-is-haxe.html). It seems possible to write something that went from Python -> Haxe -> Java? Right now all I know for sure is that Haxe offers Haxe -> Python in sourcecode (though an AST would be better, probably), and Haxe offers Haxe -> C++... Generally, it might make more sense to go from AST to AST then back to source code or something, if you didn't need to see the source code after. I personally appreciate that different languages have different syntax. In some languages it doesn't matter (because they're so close anyway), but across large gulfs there are non-negligible differences in productivity, IMO. If I need to write lots of regexes and do some small scripting or write something no one will understand later, perl's syntax might shine there, it would be bad (I think) to get into the habit of writing in one syntax or with one syntax when there are better syntaxes that might cut down on writing time for the job... Of course, there is the benefit of cutting down unnecessary writing by using perl INSTEAD of something like Java by using this idea...

hardwaresofton 10y ago
*AST -> AST -> vm/interpreter bytecode/machine code