Re: Programming language and IDE design

On Thu, 24 Oct 2013 10:55:09 -0400, Stefan Monnier
<monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:


>>> Similarly foolish wisdom is seen in IDEs (Integrated Development
>>> Environments) which allow the programmer to create hundreds of lines
>>> of code with just a few clicks of the mouse. Thus instantly creating
>>> a significant maintenance effort.
>
>> 99% (or more) of generated code will never be touched by a human.
>> Probably 80% of it even will never be looked at.
>> I have never read anything which suggests to me that Dijkstra was - or
>> would have been - against source code generators.
>
>IIUC, the OP was referring to the use of things like templates.
>I.e. case where the generated source code is then edited by the user.
>DSLs, macros, compiler compilers, and other code generators are
>completely different, since the generated code is constantly
>re-generated: it's not "source" code.


My sense was that OP was referring to application wizards more so than
templates or macros. In any event, I disagree with the notion that
where the fix is applied makes a fundamental difference. To me the
difference is the probability of a programmer having to look at the
output of the generator.


To reveal potential bias: I have developed GUI applications on Mac and
Windows since early on (MacOS 2 and Windows 3) - I've written
applications for them from scratch, using skeletons and using wizard
generators. I also have done a fair bit of bare metal embedded work,
and have created several DSL tools myself for various purposes -
including one commercial product. Consequently I have spent quite a
lot of time over the years poring over code generated by various tools
... assembly listings, parser code, templates and, of course, the
output of my own DSL tools.


IME wizard framework code is simultaneously the least likely to be
looked at, but the most likely to require direct modification when
developing a non-trivial application.


DSL, template and macro generated code is more likely to have to be
traced through - because, charitably speaking, the errors and warnings
from compiling them, and the problems from using them quite often are
difficult to understand without doing so. However, as you say, it is
the usual case that the problem will be solved in the DSL or template
source.


YMMV,
George

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