Re: History of code completion

genew@mail.ocis.net (Gene Wirchenko) writes:
> I can do it myself. ...
> It depends on the language, but I expect theoretical limitations
> bite often. Compiler preprocessors probably raise much havoc with
> such editors.


Good point -- C is hard to support in a system like this, in the fully
general case. Then again, I'm sure there is a large subset of
preprocessor usage that *could* be supported, if only people bothered.


> >Now, the editor can have a compiled version of the program at all
> >times. If you want to change the name of a function, you can select
> >that function and then bring up a menu -- the editor will know that
> >(a) you have selected a function name, and (b) what functions are in
> >scope at that point. Squeak's end-user programming tool is a current
> >system that works like this, but it's not practical for general
> >programming. (Though there is talk....)
>
> Will it change all calls, including in other programs? No?
> Then, I had better keep track of things. Will it adjust comments to
> line them up if the new name is a different length than the old name?
> How do I specify this? Whichever way it works, it's unlikely to do it
> my way exactly.


Yes, that's the idea. Of course, your codebase must be visible to the
editor and the editor must understand the language, both of which seem
unappealing to you.


Regarding code layout, it is only a small step forward to have it
point you to all the changes it made. In fact, a tool is likely to
have "show references to this function" well before it has "change the
name of this function".


-Lex

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