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Since the beginning of computer time people have been working on structure editing, because academically it's very compelling, yet in practice text wins out ove

Since the beginning of computer time people have been working on structure editing, because academically it's very compelling, yet in practice text wins out over and over. That said, there's probably a lot of opportunity to have "structure under the hood", but that's kind of a moot point in general because that's what linters, compilers, etc., are. But maybe his specific point about structural diffs is salient; that maybe there are huge wins in structural diffs that we haven't tapped into for some reason. Again, there are decades of research in structural diffing, so where's the impact?

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avindroth 5y ago
It works well with lisps at the very least
- rjsw 5y ago
  Of the Lisp Machine vendors, only Xerox had a structure editor.
  - fiddlerwoaroof 5y ago
    This is right, strictly-speaking, but paredit-style editing was one of the most compelling features in my decision to write lisp whenever I can
    - nabla9 5y ago
      Structure editor can mean many things things. You have text file that contains structures the editor knows about. You can edit and modify syntactically and semantically incorrect structures, leave them broken incomplete, etc. Then there is a strict structure editor idea, where editing is writing ensures correct structures, modification happens from correct structure to another correct structure. That has never cached on. It turns out that editing code is more than just writing down the algorithm. It's also sketching, doodling and playing with ideas, ... Lisp environments have the best of the both worlds. You have text, but also alive structures that live in the runtime image and can be saved. Close match between text syntax and the internal data structure makes it pleasure to work with.
abnercoimbre 5y ago
Check out Dion Systems [0] for a recent, useful take on structured editing. The demo is rather inspiring. [0] https://media.handmade-seattle.com/dion-systems https://media.handmade-seattle.com/dion-systems

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avindroth 5y ago

It works well with lisps at the very least

rjsw 5y ago
Of the Lisp Machine vendors, only Xerox had a structure editor.
- fiddlerwoaroof 5y ago
  This is right, strictly-speaking, but paredit-style editing was one of the most compelling features in my decision to write lisp whenever I can
  - nabla9 5y ago
    Structure editor can mean many things things. You have text file that contains structures the editor knows about. You can edit and modify syntactically and semantically incorrect structures, leave them broken incomplete, etc. Then there is a strict structure editor idea, where editing is writing ensures correct structures, modification happens from correct structure to another correct structure. That has never cached on. It turns out that editing code is more than just writing down the algorithm. It's also sketching, doodling and playing with ideas, ... Lisp environments have the best of the both worlds. You have text, but also alive structures that live in the runtime image and can be saved. Close match between text syntax and the internal data structure makes it pleasure to work with.

abnercoimbre 5y ago

Check out Dion Systems [0] for a recent, useful take on structured editing. The demo is rather inspiring. [0] https://media.handmade-seattle.com/dion-systems https://media.handmade-seattle.com/dion-systems