This reminds me of what I think is the curious omission of source maps inside editors or IDEs. The opportunity is most easily explained by pointing at the issu

This reminds me of what I think is the curious omission of source maps inside editors or IDEs. The opportunity is most easily explained by pointing at the issue of significant whitespace: it should not be a language feature, but an editor option. Those that want it should get it, no need to fuss at the language level. It is not semantics. Source maps could do the trick. One could edit a source mapped version, and have the edits piped back to the source. I'm sure there are lots more applications that make sense for an editor. Imagine having to edit a big table with lots of columns. If one could supply the editor with a filter that pairs the text down to the interesting tidbits, with a source map, edits could be mapped back to the source. That would be a big win. Another trivial example are coding styles. Everybody has their own, the editor should interface that style to the code-base. I believe source map support in editors could enable this. The biggest win would be an ecosystem of plugins for such services.