>Also notice how writing the refactoring as a query over the model is actually not that difficult. I can imagine how I would write an SQL query like that in a f

>Also notice how writing the refactoring as a query over the model is actually not that difficult. I can imagine how I would write an SQL query like that in a few lines. On the other hand, writing an automated refactoring system in IntelliJ or VSCode sounds like a lifetime problem, and it's kinda unsolvable. No, it really isn't unsolvable. I saw the demo for DION[1] after following a comment[2] here, and it was close enough to some ideas that I also thought were unsolvable, until I saw their demo. They made a brilliant choice, use the model to regenerate source code. This transforms the problem into something much easier to work on. I'm an old Pascal programmer, so I did what I always do, fired up Lazarus (the Free Pascal based IDE) and started writing code.[3] It doesn't do any actual work, except for showing off the main concept. Abstract syntax tree on the left generates almost usable Pascal code on the right. Selecting code then selects the right part of the tree that generated it. I've only got a few hours into it, and it's already doing things I would have thought impossible, trivially. There's no reason you, dear reader, couldn't do the same with your own programming language. We're at one of those points in history where 5 people invent the same thing. The future is going to be a lot better once we can directly manipulate Abstract Syntax Trees instead of source code. 1 - https://media.handmade-seattle.com/dion-systems/ (watch the 1st video!) 2 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32372707 3 - https://github.com/mikewarot/treehouse