4 ms·

What are you suggesting? Some kind of "rich text"? Or are you suggesting visual programming?

cat199 9y ago
I think OP is suggesting something akin to the magical automated dev tools of the 1980s (OOH ITS GRAPHICAL) which never actually came to fruition.
- narag 9y ago
  I don't know what you refer to. But anyway, be careful with discarding ideas that didn't work in the 80's. What was unpractical then could be very convenient today. Edit: actually I'm curious how much time it will take for my gp comment to go from "downvoted eccentricity" to obvious. More edit: I'm not only thinking in more computing power. We know a little more on usability and user experience now than then.
  - LeifCarrotson 9y ago
    Like Light Table? In the 80s, it would be unimaginable that you could re-compile and run code with every keystroke, or watch the values of variables updating in real time. The demo (http://lighttable.com/#see http://lighttable.com/#see) would be inconceivable.
    - narag 9y ago
      That seems too complex. In the 80's there was TurboPascal, an IDE sold for $50 with step-by-step execution and variable inspection. Compilation was extremely fast. I dislike doing things with every keystroke. I hate when I start typing something in an IDE and it rushes to underline the word with a disapproving red line.
wdfx 9y ago
I was just thinking about some kind of code side-car file format which stores comments/docs separately. You'd then have a vertical split view with code on one side and the linked comments/docs on the other. You could select some code and use that to insert/link comments in the other pane. I'm not entirely sure if I've ever seen something like this before - maybe as a feature in a specific language, but not as an IDE feature for all languages.
- wdfx 9y ago
  as for using comments to disable code - you probably should have the active code in source control and then you are free to simply delete it.
  - narag 9y ago
    This solution or simply a switch to temporarily disable some chunk of code should be an easy-to-use part of the editor. The programmer should not be concerned with implementation details (implementation details of the editor/language, not the program being written) like nested comments, indentation, etc.
narag 9y ago
"Visual programming" seems to have too many meanings. "Rich text" too. I meant code editors that "know" that you are writing code and make things easier for you. In other words, exactly the opposite to one that prompts absurd debates about if multiline comments are a good or a bad idea.
- LeifCarrotson 9y ago
  > make things easier for you This sounds a lot like "do what I mean." You have to tell the editor in some way that you want to write a block comment or not, and that you want to end it. My editor does make somethings easier for me - if I start a block comment, it automatically inserts the block comment closing character after my cursor. It does syntax highlighting of the block comments, so it's obvious at a glance where they begin and end. I can declare or remove a bunch of single-line comments by selecting a block of text and hitting a shortcut key, or by creating a multi-line cursor at the start of the lines and adding or deleting the single-line comment characters. I find it hard to imagine an editor with an interface which is easier and faster than entering simple text, once I'm intimately familiar with the shortcuts used with the editor and the syntax of the language I'm writing in. If one exists or could exist, I'd love to know about it!
  - narag 9y ago
    I find it hard to imagine an editor with an interface which is easier and faster than entering simple text So you call "entering simple text" to the automatic managing of comments that you just described? I can't honestly agree with that ;)

I think OP is suggesting something akin to the magical automated dev tools of the 1980s (OOH ITS GRAPHICAL) which never actually came to fruition.

narag 9y ago
I don't know what you refer to. But anyway, be careful with discarding ideas that didn't work in the 80's. What was unpractical then could be very convenient today. Edit: actually I'm curious how much time it will take for my gp comment to go from "downvoted eccentricity" to obvious. More edit: I'm not only thinking in more computing power. We know a little more on usability and user experience now than then.
- LeifCarrotson 9y ago
  Like Light Table? In the 80s, it would be unimaginable that you could re-compile and run code with every keystroke, or watch the values of variables updating in real time. The demo (http://lighttable.com/#see http://lighttable.com/#see) would be inconceivable.
  - narag 9y ago
    That seems too complex. In the 80's there was TurboPascal, an IDE sold for $50 with step-by-step execution and variable inspection. Compilation was extremely fast. I dislike doing things with every keystroke. I hate when I start typing something in an IDE and it rushes to underline the word with a disapproving red line.

wdfx 9y ago

I was just thinking about some kind of code side-car file format which stores comments/docs separately. You'd then have a vertical split view with code on one side and the linked comments/docs on the other. You could select some code and use that to insert/link comments in the other pane. I'm not entirely sure if I've ever seen something like this before - maybe as a feature in a specific language, but not as an IDE feature for all languages.

wdfx 9y ago
as for using comments to disable code - you probably should have the active code in source control and then you are free to simply delete it.
- narag 9y ago
  This solution or simply a switch to temporarily disable some chunk of code should be an easy-to-use part of the editor. The programmer should not be concerned with implementation details (implementation details of the editor/language, not the program being written) like nested comments, indentation, etc.

narag 9y ago

"Visual programming" seems to have too many meanings. "Rich text" too. I meant code editors that "know" that you are writing code and make things easier for you. In other words, exactly the opposite to one that prompts absurd debates about if multiline comments are a good or a bad idea.

LeifCarrotson 9y ago
> make things easier for you This sounds a lot like "do what I mean." You have to tell the editor in some way that you want to write a block comment or not, and that you want to end it. My editor does make somethings easier for me - if I start a block comment, it automatically inserts the block comment closing character after my cursor. It does syntax highlighting of the block comments, so it's obvious at a glance where they begin and end. I can declare or remove a bunch of single-line comments by selecting a block of text and hitting a shortcut key, or by creating a multi-line cursor at the start of the lines and adding or deleting the single-line comment characters. I find it hard to imagine an editor with an interface which is easier and faster than entering simple text, once I'm intimately familiar with the shortcuts used with the editor and the syntax of the language I'm writing in. If one exists or could exist, I'd love to know about it!
- narag 9y ago
  I find it hard to imagine an editor with an interface which is easier and faster than entering simple text So you call "entering simple text" to the automatic managing of comments that you just described? I can't honestly agree with that ;)