5 ms·

It seems like the author forgets that the medium of code IS text. Not graphics, or sound, or a 3D model... but code is text, and for now text is the most conci

by lee 16y ago

It seems like the author forgets that the medium of code IS text. Not graphics, or sound, or a 3D model... but code is text, and for now text is the most concise representation of code. But actually, a textual representation means that you need to rely less on fancy GUI's to write code. There are also added benefits like ease of search. If you're using a nice editor like Emacs or Vim, the medium is very easy to manipulate.

corruption 16y ago
Even though code is text, you would think someone would have tried to build a different view given the popularity of MVC. Inline expansion would be nice. So would code paths. So would inline images & html rendering for documentation. So would the relevant rendered html for the issue relating to the code you are looking at. So would other annotations. And what about visually hiding code when working in a language like java? I tried to get this going in eclipse once, and it really wasn't going to happen easily so I gave up. I've always hoped someone would build something similar as I feel it would really help productivity having everything relevant right there with the code. Note: The project http://code.google.com/p/lambda4jdt/ http://code.google.com/p/lambda4jdt/ is the closest thing I have found to what I am suggesting which I think shows the power. It just goes to show that it could work.
- bruceboughton 16y ago
  Indeed, MS are trying to encourage this with the new WPF-based editor in VS2010. The developer's examples are all about graphical overlays replacing certain types of code. It will be interesting to see if ISVs take this forward.
- vilya 16y ago
  Jonathan Edwards' Subtext programming language might be of interest to you: http://www.subtextual.org/ http://www.subtextual.org/
- ollysb 16y ago
  regarding lambda4jdt: It's a sorry state of affairs when you're relying on the IDE to hide the noise in a language.
  - corruption 16y ago
    Let's say you had an eclipse plugin that let you write in lisp, but it actually converted the code to java underneath. You could click a button to switch between views. Are you saying that would be a bad thing? If a tool allows you to be more productive, I use it. Note: I don't use lambda4jdt at all, I just like the idea of creating problem specific views for code and I don't think that belongs at the language level.
    - ollysb 16y ago
      You're right, my comment was directed at your example really; the code before and after use the same representation, text. In that case it seems the original was simply a poor textual representation of the logic. I'm actually a firm believer in being able to visualise code. After all coding really gets done in my head and when it's in there it's in 3D images/videos. I long for the day when I can work in an immersive environment where I can walk around the design suspended in the air. That day seems a long way off at the moment though :)
jsmcgd 16y ago
I would argue medium is correct syntax which can be constructed out of text. I'm not just being pedantic, I think it's a very important distinction.
narag 16y ago
It seems like the author forgets that the medium of code IS text. In fact, it isn't. Code is better defined as a tree. The "impedance mismatch" of writting a tree using sequential text strings is what makes fragile the tools that IDEs feature. That code is seen as text is just a historical accident. I believe most serious programmers have been beaten by some incomplete implementation of graphical interfaces and accepted to fall back to good old plain text. But we are in 2010. This acceptance of this state of matters is very unfortunate. Specially sad is when the author says that IDEs are no more than text editors with some extended capabilities. They shouldn't! They should load the code in all its glorious shape... that by no means is a chunk of text.
- lee 16y ago
  I did say "medium". The form with which we interact with. Text is the best medium right now. No one's discovered a better method of representation. Are you saying we should represent code in a more graphical tree-like way? Even in that case, you still need text to fill in the tree. Or are you saying we should program in visio-style diagrams?
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - lukev 16y ago
    > Or are you saying we should program in visio-style diagrams? Yes. It should be possible to develop an interface that is actually faster and cleaner to program in than text. I'd love to see what touch interfaces can do in this regard. It's never been done, granted. But it should be possible. I hope developers aren't dissuaded from attempting graphical programming interfaces just because everything that has existed up to now has sucked.
    - rbanffy 16y ago
      > Yes. It should be possible to develop an interface that is actually faster and cleaner to program in than text http://scratch.mit.edu/ http://scratch.mit.edu/ ? I am not sure I would like to use it for anything complex.

by lee 16y ago

corruption 16y ago

Even though code is text, you would think someone would have tried to build a different view given the popularity of MVC. Inline expansion would be nice. So would code paths. So would inline images & html rendering for documentation. So would the relevant rendered html for the issue relating to the code you are looking at. So would other annotations. And what about visually hiding code when working in a language like java? I tried to get this going in eclipse once, and it really wasn't going to happen easily so I gave up. I've always hoped someone would build something similar as I feel it would really help productivity having everything relevant right there with the code. Note: The project http://code.google.com/p/lambda4jdt/ http://code.google.com/p/lambda4jdt/ is the closest thing I have found to what I am suggesting which I think shows the power. It just goes to show that it could work.

bruceboughton 16y ago
Indeed, MS are trying to encourage this with the new WPF-based editor in VS2010. The developer's examples are all about graphical overlays replacing certain types of code. It will be interesting to see if ISVs take this forward.
vilya 16y ago
Jonathan Edwards' Subtext programming language might be of interest to you: http://www.subtextual.org/ http://www.subtextual.org/
ollysb 16y ago
regarding lambda4jdt: It's a sorry state of affairs when you're relying on the IDE to hide the noise in a language.
- corruption 16y ago
  Let's say you had an eclipse plugin that let you write in lisp, but it actually converted the code to java underneath. You could click a button to switch between views. Are you saying that would be a bad thing? If a tool allows you to be more productive, I use it. Note: I don't use lambda4jdt at all, I just like the idea of creating problem specific views for code and I don't think that belongs at the language level.
  - ollysb 16y ago
    You're right, my comment was directed at your example really; the code before and after use the same representation, text. In that case it seems the original was simply a poor textual representation of the logic. I'm actually a firm believer in being able to visualise code. After all coding really gets done in my head and when it's in there it's in 3D images/videos. I long for the day when I can work in an immersive environment where I can walk around the design suspended in the air. That day seems a long way off at the moment though :)

jsmcgd 16y ago

I would argue medium is correct syntax which can be constructed out of text. I'm not just being pedantic, I think it's a very important distinction.

narag 16y ago

It seems like the author forgets that the medium of code IS text. In fact, it isn't. Code is better defined as a tree. The "impedance mismatch" of writting a tree using sequential text strings is what makes fragile the tools that IDEs feature. That code is seen as text is just a historical accident. I believe most serious programmers have been beaten by some incomplete implementation of graphical interfaces and accepted to fall back to good old plain text. But we are in 2010. This acceptance of this state of matters is very unfortunate. Specially sad is when the author says that IDEs are no more than text editors with some extended capabilities. They shouldn't! They should load the code in all its glorious shape... that by no means is a chunk of text.

lee 16y ago
I did say "medium". The form with which we interact with. Text is the best medium right now. No one's discovered a better method of representation. Are you saying we should represent code in a more graphical tree-like way? Even in that case, you still need text to fill in the tree. Or are you saying we should program in visio-style diagrams?
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- lukev 16y ago
  > Or are you saying we should program in visio-style diagrams? Yes. It should be possible to develop an interface that is actually faster and cleaner to program in than text. I'd love to see what touch interfaces can do in this regard. It's never been done, granted. But it should be possible. I hope developers aren't dissuaded from attempting graphical programming interfaces just because everything that has existed up to now has sucked.
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    > Yes. It should be possible to develop an interface that is actually faster and cleaner to program in than text http://scratch.mit.edu/ http://scratch.mit.edu/ ? I am not sure I would like to use it for anything complex.