Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bbn!rochester!udel!princeton!siemens!steve From: steve@siemens.UUCP (Steve Clark) Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Subject: Re: lisp environments summary Message-ID: <339@siemens.UUCP> Date: 10 Dec 87 14:07:31 GMT References: <1254@vaxb.calgary.UUCP> Reply-To: steve@siemens.UUCP (Steve Clark) Organization: Siemens RTL, Princeton, NJ Lines: 34 In article <1254@vaxb.calgary.UUCP> jameson@calgary.UUCP (Kevin Jameson) writes: >References: <613@umbc3.UMD.EDU> <325@siemens.UUCP> >Editing Lisp functions as text and then loading them into the environment >is also a method with many advantages. > >Stallman addresses this exact issue in Interactive Programming Environments >(Barstow/Shrobe/Sandewall, McGraw Hill 1984). > > 1. It allows user-specified indentation > 2. Comments are easily stored and formatted as the user likes them. > 3. Code need not be properly structured (ie, syntactically correct) > 4. Balanced editing functions (eg. balance-parens-backward) can > 5. It supports extended syntax mechanisms (eg, the quote > facility) which normally destroy the one-to-one mapping > 6. It allows the editor to be used for other languages, not just > 7. It allows smooth changes to operational parts of the Lisp 1. I hate having to do my own indentation, and when I don't have to, I never find the automatic indentation bad enough that I want to override it. 2. does not have to be a big problem - so a structure editor should handle several kinds of comments, and you pick the style you prefer for each one. 3. Especially in Lisp, I think this is a no-op. 4. These are useful in other languages because the other languages don't have structure editors of their own. 5. I agree with 5 100%! Except that my conclusion is to fix the structure editor, not abandon the approach. It CAN be done. 6. There are research structure editors out there that do different languages - I think this big win for Emacs will no longer be unique to Emacs. 7. I don't really understand this point. I think structure editors must have come a long way since 1984. I know the Interlisp-D structure editor has. Steve Clark, steve@siemens.com, princeton!siemens!steve