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
@C0D312 & @castles_made_of_sand
Then we agree completely. Iâm all for using âpowerful toolsâ and freeing wasted brain-cycles/time
Itâs a nice idea, but I believe this was not the presenterâs main point. He specifically states, that his principle is âCreators 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.â(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 donât 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 âimprovesâ things. It works for some problems, but for others leads to a sub-optimal solution.
IMO there are different, better approaches that solve real programmersâ problems. Like when you know what you want to do, youâve got the working mental model and the tool (IDE/compier/text-editor/type system/âŚ) 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 changeâŚ
Think:
- clang.llvm.org/diagnostics.html
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_inference
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor_model (for concurrency)
- ST2 multiselection
- ZenCoding
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, thereâs sometimes more than one destination. Maybe you donât even know until you get there?
There is an abundance of software problems that just donât 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 donât matter as much as the root or principle.
Just cause we canât get instant feedback with the, letâs face it, shitty tools around today, doesnât mean it wouldnât be a good thing.
there are different, better approaches that solve real programmersâ problems
Not sure it was touted as the be all/ end all or even something editor
specific. At least thatâs not what I took away.
Anyway, I canât think of any circumstance when developing software having immediate feedback and insight into its workings would hinder rather than help. If you think itâd 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 elevatedâŚ
Besides, when Iâm 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?
It means that while looking for a solution (a maximum) you always choose a direction that improves your current state.
This way youâll reach local maximum, but then youâve 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 donât 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 canât get instant feedback with the, letâs face it, shitty tools around today, doesnât mean it wouldnât be a good thing.
Well, OK, I just donât believe this can be achieved for a general case.
Itâs 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 canât And TBH I hope Iâm wrong
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
Hahahaha Castles_made_of_sand youâre a genius! This could be a great plugin for ST!!!
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). Iâd rather just use LiveReload.app
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 itâs low hanging fruit.
Iâm way behind the times. Tell me more about this LiveReload.app
Oh, that sounds awesome! I bet thereâs away we can hook the on_modified event into that
Will definitely have to take a look into that but I really want on_modified
rather than on_save
[quote=âcastles_made_of_sandâ]http://gmh.akalias.net/prefer-to-dream.gif
hurrah for MozRepl![/quote]
This so needs released
[quote=âcastles_made_of_sandâ]
You should check out http://livereload.com/
That one already has itâs own forum topic:
And if you like it, your upvotes are welcome here:
sublimetext.userecho.com/topic/1 ⌠ght-table/