 non plain-textual programming languages
started 2/28/2001; 11:37:14 AM - last post 3/1/2001; 1:22:49 AM
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Basile STARYNKEVITCH - non plain-textual programming languages 
2/28/2001; 11:37:14 AM (reads: 381, responses: 4)
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Nearly all programming languages I know about are plainly textual,
in the sense that a source program in that language is input
in a set of plain textual files, like C, Lisp, Ocaml, Smalltalk, Haskell, etc...
Does anyone know about a programming language whose source is not a
plain text file, but something more fancier (either an hypertext, or
an enriched text, etc...)
I know (or have read) about visual languages, and Galaxy (an hypertext based one...)
I feel that with today's powerful computer, we could input source code
in something fancier that a text editor (like Emacs, Vi or Notepad)
Regards
any remarks are welcome
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Ehud Lamm - Re: non plain-textual programming languages
2/28/2001; 1:35:11 PM (reads: 393, responses: 0)
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I am not sure I understand what you are after. You are interested in languages that use hypertext instead of plain text, is that it? It seems you are not interested in visual languages, right?
As I see it, hypertext can be useful for displaying code, and navigating it -but I really don't see any expressiveness advantage.
There are, naturally, many tools that use HTML to browse code.
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Basile STARYNKEVITCH - Re: non plain-textual programming languages
2/28/2001; 2:22:28 PM (reads: 394, responses: 0)
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I am interested by language (and implementations) in which the coder
view, use, browse and edit more the source program in a different way than plain old text (like C, Ocaml, ...) even highlighted by a powerful Emacs mode.
I am thinking, eg, to active syntax editor (like the Centaur system from INRIA a dozen? year ago). I also think that inputting a program
in an hypertext fashion is a powerful concept. By the way, I also would love to be able to have (sometimes) a variable a in italic font and another variable a in red font, etc....
The language system (it would be much powerful than a fancy editor) could interactivly compute lots of interesting stuff (eg undefined variables, inferred types, code metrics, static code analysis) during
source code input.
I am obviously not (only) thinking to HTML based code *browsers*, but
more of a more powerful way to input and update programming code.
For instance, if I add a new formal argument to a function, the system could highlight and interactively ask the corresponding actual parameter at each of its call sites, etc...
Programming systems should be designed with more interactivity in mind
(parsing, type and code analysis.... during the source code input).
[[I do agree that my ideas are not clear enough yet... Discussion is needed!]]
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Chris Rathman - Re: non plain-textual programming languages
2/28/2001; 3:11:43 PM (reads: 386, responses: 0)
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Personally, I think HTML's days are numbered. Most of the research and advancement is in XML. HTML 4.0 is most likely the last standard along these lines, with the standards committee doing more than just nudging everyone to go the direction of XHTML. In essence, the HTML standard will be folded into XML.
That said, there are a number of efforts to use XML as the basis for programming (I don't have the links offhand, but IIRC we've discussed them on Lambda in the not too distant past). The nice thing about using XML as the basis of programs is that you can get the hypertext markup stuff (like XHTML) for free. So you should be able to fold the presentation stuff through a namespace into the code itself.
Anhow, it's just a thought. :-)
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Ehud Lamm - Re: non plain-textual programming languages
3/1/2001; 1:22:49 AM (reads: 399, responses: 0)
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Basile, it seems to me you ARE talking about editing and displaying code, and not about the programming language per se. Aren't you thinking about tools built around a pl? I agree such tools should not be limited to displaying code, and should also support editing. But the languages I can imagine are still all pretty much textual.
That said, there are a number of efforts to use XML as the basis for programming (I don't have the links offhand, but IIRC we've discussed them on Lambda in the not too distant past).
Chris, are you thinking of this?
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