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Date:Mon Aug 12 08:41:21 2003 
Subject:Re: poplog interactive mode - PS -> Syntax editor 
From:Chris Dollin 
Volume-ID:1030812.01 

 eas-lab@absamail.co.za wrote:

>> 
 Chris Dollin <kers@hpl.hp.com> wrote:
>> 
>> My understanding is that all the syntax-editors that were tried
>> failed in practice because they were instrinsically a right pain
>> to use. People just don't think in terms of tree transformations,
>> and often the convenient way to get from legal A to legal B is via
>> illegal C, D, and E.
>> 
> Yes, if you want to dumb-down to be short-term popular, you must
> let the kids just busk it, instead of learning to read the notes and
> learn initially un-natural fingering.

If syntax editing really was better than plain-text editing, I would
have thought that the earlier explorations would have demonstrated the 
benefit. Maybe machines are now becomming powerful enough ...

>> Having *help* to make syntactically correct structures is good.
>> Having *help* to spot bad ones (without having to run the compiler
>> explicitly) is good too.
> 
> I speak without experience but I just looked at the syntax-diagrams and:
>  why should I pick an "f" an "o" and an "r", when I can just pick a "for".
>  Or better still, since it is 'not a choice', just pick a "for
>  .....endfor".

I can type `for` faster than I can reach for the mouse and make a
selection. I can type `fo <completion>` faster than I can type
`for do endfor`. At least, it *feels* that way. Of course syntax
editors need not be mouse-driven - I only recall ones that were,
but that doesn't prove anything.

Perhaps we mean different things by the term "syntax editing"?

>> Saying "thou shalt edit trees and the
>> leaves therof" seems to be a way of inducing first apoplexy and
>> second skills in aiming for the wastebasket.
>> 
> That's very wordy/poetic. Can you be more scientific.

Yes. But not on this topic. I'm just reporting recollections from
the Time When Syntax Editing Was The Next Hot Thing; viz that they
were frustrating to use. 

> The desire for freedom to type in near-english dialog to the
> machine is part of the 'little man in the box' illusion - a curse.

I'm sorry, but that's just silly. Fiddling around with syntax editors
is just as much a "little man in the box" illusion as typing nowhere-
near-English non-dialogue text is. Presumably you were aiming for
the same poetic license as I was ... 
 
> Popular doesn't imply excellence.

I neither said nor implied otherwise.

> There's a place for kiddies to interface via cartoons, and there's a place
> for those who are prepared to learn to "think in terms of" what is
> proven to give long term results.

Yes - but that statement is neutral with respect to which is which.

> Based on my experience with 3 button mouse cording which takes
> some initial learning investment, but which becomes a massively
> powerful (reflex) control, and the (linux)mc/(DOS&Win)Norton-
> Commander I believe that the investment in tool usage pays
> dividends.

Yes. Independantly of which tools they are.
 
> I've never tried it (we all fear investing effort with no return)
> but I suspect that emacs can do what I have in mind ?  I also suspect
> that the few emacs users who are drawing the benefits are happy
> the 'fly in the fast lane' while the rest follow the popular way.

So far as I am aware, Emacs users don't routinely use syntax editing
for eg writing C code, writing TeX documents, writing elisp macros
etc. They use "modes", which are more like what I referred to above
as "help".

You certainly *want* some syntax-oriented operations in an editor.
That's a far cry from forcing them on people.

[Have you tried Eclipse, at least for Java? That's the sort of hybrid
I think works. You type text, but it flags language errors on-the-fly
and leaves you to sort them out in your own time. And it supports
refactoring operations which are structure-oriented, eg rename this
identifier, lift out this code as a method, add a parameter to a method.]

-- 
Chris "electric hedgehog" Dollin
C FAQs at: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/by-newsgroup/comp/comp.lang.c.html
C welcome: http://www.angelfire.com/ms3/bchambless0/welcome_to_clc.html