3 ms·

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.