4 ms·

This is the pain of text. The text format has won so handily that we rarely consider the possibility that files could be anything other than a sequence of chara

This is the pain of text. The text format has won so handily that we rarely consider the possibility that files could be anything other than a sequence of characters. But if it were a tree instead, then "parsing" would be a simple, linear-time process with good error messages.

megous 10y ago
Editing would be annoying as hell though.
- justinpombrio 10y ago
  You would use a different editor: a tree or structured editor. It would be different, but I doubt it would be worse.
  - megous 10y ago
    So, where are all the professional programmers doing blocks programming, or something like that? All visual programming is very niche. Last I got close to some was 18 years ago when working with LabView. It's not just different. It's suboptimal. It's just not compelling. You'd need visual everything. Like visual diff, visual git, make it easy to copy visual crap between various applications. Copy visual code to a web page? Copy it to chat to send to a friend? Instead of just writing, you'd need to remember UI shortcuts/icon to insert visual crap into your codebase... It's bleh. I clearly hate the idea. :D
- e12e 10y ago
  Yeah, that's why no-one uses Maya to edit 3d scenes. It lacks the finesse of text, like povray ;-)
  - munificent 10y ago
    The difference there is that the thing you are authoring is itself visual. You can't be a skilled Maya user if you're not a good visual thinker/designer because that's the core competency of 3D design itself. Code is not inherently visual. If you made the editor visual, then it means people who are good at abstract reasoning and solving problems but don't have good aesthetic and spatial sense wouldn't be able to "write good code".
    - justinpombrio 10y ago
      > Code is not inherently visual. Nor is it text. It is a tree (hence the term "abstract syntax tree"). We just save it in an awful serialized format.
    - e12e 10y ago
      > The difference there is that the thing you are authoring is itself visual. Perhaps. Or it might be structural, an object to be 3d printed. It would have a physical appearance - but perhaps not be "inherently visual", any more than the algorithms for adjusting a quadcopter for autonomous hovering is "inherently aerial"? > people who are good at abstract reasoning and solving problems but don't have good aesthetic and spatial sense wouldn't be able to "write good code". Isn't that the case with textual representation of code too? Without a sense for aesthetics, one cannot create "beautiful code"? A chessboard/game can be represented in many ways in the form of code/syntax - even mathematical equations - and yet I would argue it is less accessible to learn and play chess going from just the standard textual representation, than from a board? How would you teach chess moves: by lifting a castle off the board, showing that it can move up-and-down and sideways, like so - or by saying that the piece-instances initialized to position a1,a8,h1 and h8 can move only be changing either of its two coordinates up and down?

megous 10y ago

Editing would be annoying as hell though.

justinpombrio 10y ago
You would use a different editor: a tree or structured editor. It would be different, but I doubt it would be worse.
- megous 10y ago
  So, where are all the professional programmers doing blocks programming, or something like that? All visual programming is very niche. Last I got close to some was 18 years ago when working with LabView. It's not just different. It's suboptimal. It's just not compelling. You'd need visual everything. Like visual diff, visual git, make it easy to copy visual crap between various applications. Copy visual code to a web page? Copy it to chat to send to a friend? Instead of just writing, you'd need to remember UI shortcuts/icon to insert visual crap into your codebase... It's bleh. I clearly hate the idea. :D
e12e 10y ago
Yeah, that's why no-one uses Maya to edit 3d scenes. It lacks the finesse of text, like povray ;-)
- munificent 10y ago
  The difference there is that the thing you are authoring is itself visual. You can't be a skilled Maya user if you're not a good visual thinker/designer because that's the core competency of 3D design itself. Code is not inherently visual. If you made the editor visual, then it means people who are good at abstract reasoning and solving problems but don't have good aesthetic and spatial sense wouldn't be able to "write good code".
  - justinpombrio 10y ago
    > Code is not inherently visual. Nor is it text. It is a tree (hence the term "abstract syntax tree"). We just save it in an awful serialized format.
  - e12e 10y ago
    > The difference there is that the thing you are authoring is itself visual. Perhaps. Or it might be structural, an object to be 3d printed. It would have a physical appearance - but perhaps not be "inherently visual", any more than the algorithms for adjusting a quadcopter for autonomous hovering is "inherently aerial"? > people who are good at abstract reasoning and solving problems but don't have good aesthetic and spatial sense wouldn't be able to "write good code". Isn't that the case with textual representation of code too? Without a sense for aesthetics, one cannot create "beautiful code"? A chessboard/game can be represented in many ways in the form of code/syntax - even mathematical equations - and yet I would argue it is less accessible to learn and play chess going from just the standard textual representation, than from a board? How would you teach chess moves: by lifting a castle off the board, showing that it can move up-and-down and sideways, like so - or by saying that the piece-instances initialized to position a1,a8,h1 and h8 can move only be changing either of its two coordinates up and down?