Re: Smart textual editors

Nick Geovanis <cuedng@uic.edu> wrote:


>So...One generation of computing technology later, we can't do the same
>thing for C, a slightly more complex language? What's the problem here?
>Nick G.


The C preprocessor, for one thing.


>[Some of the integrated C environments do that sort of thing. I'm still
>not convinced it's useful other than to the most inexperienced programmers.
>-John]


All the examples mentioned so far have been syntax based editors. For
what's been done with the experience of those older systems, you
might want to check out Michael Van De Vanter's thesis on the Pan
system, at U.C. Berkeley.


Instead of constraining the programmer to use the formal syntactic
structures, this system allows the programmer to edit as if using a
standard text editor. It uses syntactic information to embellish the
display and provide additional capabilities that the programmer can
take advantage of or just ignore. Smart incremental processing make it
quite robust in the face of temporary syntactic "errors" (such as
typing the starting double quote of a string but not the terminating
one.)
--

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