Really, to me, this project is all about writing a few applications for myself. This may get lost throughout the pages of writing, but really, I am doing this for myself: flexible note-taking, a comfortable REPL, and, _at last_, a Lisp IDE (especially, with comfortable print-statement debugging). Structual editing is just the means to get these specific things right.
Of the link provided (on a skim, so I may be wrong), they seem to be all doing structural editors for specific languages, and that's where their ambitions end. That's their focus: some language. My focus is: applications. Within a power-user environment, which can't be done without a GUI toolkit, which can't be done without image-based programming.
Surely, there are some efforts which I like. Glamourous Toolkit. Not particularly about structural editing, but whatever Smalltalk stuff you take, it just tends to be interesting. Ultimately, they fail to deliver in some way, for me at least. (I comment on GT in the "All Else is Not Enough" appendix article.)
I mean, yeah, look: practical applications. First of all: usable to myself. Then: flexible enough to fit anybody else.
PS The topic article is a rant, I admit. And I rant here and then a bit in the main article, sure. But, please, don't be too quick to classify everything there as a rant, even if it stylistically looks so.
PPS I have to take at pijul again, maybe I missed something, thank you.
Well, I think they tend to focus on a particular language as a first step to reduce the scope.
I had to refactor a python codebase, and the same function was used in context managers, decorators, and functions.
Because of these disparate syntactical structures there was no way to refactor things easily or entirely de-duplicate some code. This is not an issue you would have with a Lisp.
> Glamourous Toolkit
Thank you, I was just looking at knowledge management solutions, and did not find anything really satisfying, so I was just building a small prototype for myself. I'll have a look at it iin more details!
>please, don't be too quick to classify everything there as a rant
I think you could alleviate it by providing some navigation allowing to skim more easily (I understand how much jank and sucking goes into editing large files so the comedic effect is a bit lost in the PTSD) or having more focus on achieving your vision. It's mostly editing.
But your writing doesn't have to appeal to everyone either, it's your choice.
By all means I wish you good luck and I'd like to check in on the project in one year or something.
> Well, I think they tend to focus on a particular language as a first step to reduce the scope.
Yeah, that's a way to do this, but if you start small, you will then later find yourself walled within your initial assumptions about what you really want. Oh, well.
> By all means I wish you good luck and I'd like to check in on the project in one year or something.
Of the link provided (on a skim, so I may be wrong), they seem to be all doing structural editors for specific languages, and that's where their ambitions end. That's their focus: some language. My focus is: applications. Within a power-user environment, which can't be done without a GUI toolkit, which can't be done without image-based programming.
Surely, there are some efforts which I like. Glamourous Toolkit. Not particularly about structural editing, but whatever Smalltalk stuff you take, it just tends to be interesting. Ultimately, they fail to deliver in some way, for me at least. (I comment on GT in the "All Else is Not Enough" appendix article.)
I mean, yeah, look: practical applications. First of all: usable to myself. Then: flexible enough to fit anybody else.
PS The topic article is a rant, I admit. And I rant here and then a bit in the main article, sure. But, please, don't be too quick to classify everything there as a rant, even if it stylistically looks so.
PPS I have to take at pijul again, maybe I missed something, thank you.