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
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