Re: newsgroup(s) about structure editors and programming env.s

[vorth@gt-stratus.UUCP (Scott Vorthmann)]

In article <432@ucsfcca.UUCP> dick@ucsfcca.UUCP (Dick Karpinski) writes:
>
>... For myself, and the UCSD Pascal community, I have
>written a set of ASE macros for the better version of the standard
>UCSD editor.  With ASE and the macros, three or four keystrokes
>can install another while loop, if test, or whatever with consistent
>indentation and commenting built in.  The last point saves me from
>ever writing END; END; END.

   First of all, building a program in a text editor, then handing it to a
compiler is NOT what I'm talking about.  The type of system I'm interested
in guides the programmer through a top-down construction of his program;
syntax errors are simply IMPOSSIBLE, and the better systems perform semantic
checks and generate code WHILE you are 'editing' your program.  The
traditional edit-compile-link-run loop can be closed almost completely, if
the system additionally provides an interpreter/debugger which can be
executed on any part of a program being constructed, at any time.  Sound
good?  It does to me.

   Research into this area has been going on for at least 6 years.  CMU and
Cornell (and possibly others I haven't heard of) have releases of their
systems available, and many other places are working on the idea.  It seems
that public knowledge of the existence (let alone the capabilities) of
SDE-based development environments is limited, at best.  (Please, no
indignant flames about that.)

   For that very reason, I propose a newsgroup dedicated to such ideas.
I possess neither the knowledge nor the presumptuousness to establish a
newsgroup.  If enough interest is indicated in this and other newsgroups,
maybe we can get one started.  C'mon people, lets hear it!