Exactly. Programmers should have to worry more about logic and the actual work and less about off-by-one errors and silly issues that this proposed editor would visualize in real time. While it is obviously not always applicable, it would be a huge benefit in some projects. Particularly for things with a GUI, lots of conversions, or lots of arrays.
New concept of text editing for coders
wuub
#15
@C0D312 & @castles_made_of_sand
Then we agree completely. I’m all for using “powerful tools” and freeing wasted brain-cycles/time
It’s a nice idea, but I believe this was not the presenter’s main point. He specifically states, that his principle is “Creators need an immediate connection. So I can watch you change a line of code, an I can ask: did you immediately see the effect of that change? Yes or No? If no, I got to do something about that.”(52:30).
I strongly believe that this is a false direction for software development, for several reasons:
- There is an abundance of software problems that just don’t give at all to this way of thinking, or in different words, using the proposed approach require more, not less brain cycles than our current (think/code/compile/run/rinse/repeat process). Instead of one mental models to comprehend, you now have two.
- Even when the instant feedback works, it encourages a gradient-ascent approach to problem solving. If after a change everything is FUBAR, you will just undo and tinker in a different direction that “improves” things. It works for some problems, but for others leads to a sub-optimal solution.
IMO there are different, better approaches that solve real programmers’ problems. Like when you know what you want to do, you’ve got the working mental model and the tool (IDE/compier/text-editor/type system/…) gets in your way when you try to code a solution, or plays stupid, or generates technical problems that it should solve by itself, or requires you to do too much to introduce a simple change…
Think:
- clang.llvm.org/diagnostics.html
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_inference
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor_model (for concurrency)
- ST2 multiselection
- ZenCoding
0 Likes
sublimator
#16
encourages a gradient-ascent approach to problem solving
Not really sure what that means. I left school when I was 12 so the math just goes over my head 
From what you said after, it sounds like an inefficient path of thoughtless trial and error.
Remember though, there’s sometimes more than one destination. Maybe you don’t even know until you get there?
There is an abundance of software problems that just don’t give at all to this way of thinking,
Like what? The examples in the video were just various cases of showing how instant feedback helps. The various flowers or details don’t matter as much as the root or principle.
Just cause we can’t get instant feedback with the, let’s face it, shitty tools around today, doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be a good thing.
there are different, better approaches that solve real programmers’ problems
Not sure it was touted as the be all/ end all or even something editor specific. At least that’s not what I took away.
Anyway, I can’t think of any circumstance when developing software having immediate feedback and insight into its workings would hinder rather than help. If you think it’d lead only to laziness I strongly disagree with you. At worst yes, you sit down on those shoulders and get taken for a ride. But at best, you stand up, and concentrate hard on keeping your elevation for the perspective it affords. One of the guys points was that the instant feedack and insight allows you to more quickly build accurate mental models. A mind once elevated…
Besides, when I’m dead tired, or really want to be doing something else, that easy ride would be most welcome! If our mental models are so great why is software so buggy? Why do we write tests?
0 Likes
wuub
#17
It means that while looking for a solution (a maximum) you always choose a direction that improves your current state.
This way you’ll reach local maximum, but then you’ve got nowhere to go, and global maximum can be somewhere else entirely: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_maximum
There is an abundance of software problems that just don’t give at all to this way of thinking,
Like what?
Think what would be a helpful instant feedback for the following problems: OO Design, algorithm design, anything concurrency related, almost anything embedded or real-time, integration work (DB + UI + MQ+ FileSystem + XML + WebAPI + whoknowswhatelse), bugfixing.
I would love to be proven wrong and see how such tools could solving something more complex. Take a look at visualization of quicksort: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Timsort-edited.png TBH I need more brain-cycles to understand what those images are showing, than to understand the algorithm itself.
Just cause we can’t get instant feedback with the, let’s face it, shitty tools around today, doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be a good thing.
Well, OK, I just don’t believe this can be achieved for a general case.
It’s always a funny exercise to run a tool on itself. Jon uses SublimeText to develop SublimeText, many compilers for language [X] are written in language [X], a schema for validating XMLSchema documents etc.
Can you think of a instant-feedback tool/editor/ide that will help develop better instant-feedback tools? I know I can’t 
And TBH I hope I’m wrong 
0 Likes
sublimator
#22
Everyone else in 5 years
http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR8rVmjFQIbBtIIN398o-DGZov2tyoHF272yjAmoEFQcDED0Pnn
Wuub
http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTuDd59DgnDWi-pnpiSGrcoeuSg-OulM-RToy1v1b73pL5I3Wq5UQ
0 Likes
malpeli
#25
Hahahaha Castles_made_of_sand you’re a genius! This could be a great plugin for ST!!!
0 Likes
C0D312
#26
How could pictures of spongebob make a great plugin? 
But, yeah. Realtime css is awesome. Not worth all the hassle of setting up a telnet connection through mozrepl, imho (which is what castles did). I’d rather just use LiveReload.app
0 Likes
sublimator
#27
hahaha
With MozRepl you could do stuff like hi jack the ctrl+shift+c inspect node function to open up the applied css and fold out all the unrelated rules. I just like it cause it’s low hanging fruit.
I’m way behind the times. Tell me more about this LiveReload.app
0 Likes
sublimator
#28
Oh, that sounds awesome! I bet there’s away we can hook the on_modified event into that
0 Likes
sublimator
#29
Will definitely have to take a look into that but I really want on_modified rather than on_save
0 Likes
tanepiper
#30
[quote=“castles_made_of_sand”]http://gmh.akalias.net/prefer-to-dream.gif
hurrah for MozRepl![/quote]
This so needs released
0 Likes
djernie
#33
That one already has it’s own forum topic:
And if you like it, your upvotes are welcome here:
sublimetext.userecho.com/topic/1 … ght-table/
0 Likes