[REBOL] Re: [editor] REBOL editor (was: Updated Syntax Highlighting for UltraEdit)
From: greg::schofield::iinet::net::au at: 10-Dec-2007 22:36
Gregg, I am no professional scriptor, usually just using any text editor on hand. Line
editors leave me a bit cold - rethinking things and doing a ground up editor in REBOL,
for REBOL, seems a good approach - of course if the design is very good it will be good
for a lot of different text tasks.
So with some trepidation I would make a few suggestions.
I have a typographical background, therefore line editors are to my eyes primitive, the
colouring of syntax tokens, helpful to a degree, but hardly exploiting the full and subtle
range needed to see clearly the relationships between code fragments.
The block syntax of REBOL seems to especially recommend itself to typographical layout.
To collapsing and expanding fragments, to employing hierarchical numbering instead of
simple line numbers. Plus for novices it would make longer scripts all the more readable
and that is important.
I would suggest a break with line editing altogether, and the idea of block manipulation
as the basis for quickly composing scripts, making comments sensible, readable and typographically
distinct, along with other features of the language.
Greg Schofield
Perth Australia
--- Message Received ---
From: Gregg Irwin <gregg-pointillistic.com>
To: Carl Read <rebolist-rebol.com>
Reply-To: rebolist-rebol.com
Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 14:01:08 -0700
Subject: [REBOL] [editor] REBOL editor (was: Updated Syntax Highlighting for UltraEdit)
I've always thought that we were 90% of the way there, since emacs was
built on a Lisp engine that they had to write first. Cal Dixon wrote
a console mode emacs engine, and James Marsden did some really cool
stuff with View. I think it's doable, and I want a full REBOL
environment but, to me, that means rethinking things, not just doing
what other editors and IDEs do.
-- Gregg
