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