Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!rochester!PT.CS.CMU.EDU!sei!sei.cmu.edu!firth From: firth@sei.cmu.edu.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.lang.modula2 Subject: Re: M2Amiga, another bunch of answers Message-ID: <3476@aw.sei.cmu.edu> Date: Mon, 7-Dec-87 08:15:17 EST Article-I.D.: aw.3476 Posted: Mon Dec 7 08:15:17 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 12-Dec-87 10:21:31 EST References: <1221@sugar.UUCP> <1336@saturn.ucsc.edu> Sender: netnews@sei.cmu.edu Reply-To: firth@bd.sei.cmu.edu.UUCP (PUT YOUR NAME HERE) Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, SEI, Pgh, Pa Lines: 26 Keywords: language sensitive editors. In article <1336@saturn.ucsc.edu> wolf@ssyx.ucsc.edu (Mike Wolf) writes: >Last summer I was hired to do ADA programming under VMS. (UCSC just has >UNIX) The latest editor for VMS is called the Language Sensitive Editor. >I found the LSE more of an annoyance then anything else... For editors such as you describe, I'd agree. An editor that just understands the syntax is, in my opinion, useless - it makes some trivial things easier and other trivial things harder. The last such editor I tried to use got junked after 2 hours, when I found out (a) It absolutely refused to let me put any white space in the text (b) It would not accept comments in places the language definition said they were legal (eg within a procedure formal part) It was also grindingly slow. On the other hand, a REAL language sensitive editor would be very useful. Imagine placing the cursor on an identifier and being able with one click or keystroke to bring up its declaration. Overload resolution and cross-module resolution done for you. Imagine being able to see the fully qualified name of the identifier, with another click. Imagine it tracking the range of a numeric expression as you type, and displaying that range in a little box. And so on.