Comments on: Desperate to stand out http://blog.ngedit.com/2007/09/05/desperate-to-stand-out/ A blog on the development of the NGEDIT text editor Thu, 28 Aug 2008 02:18:25 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.2 By: J http://blog.ngedit.com/2007/09/05/desperate-to-stand-out/#comment-75268 J Mon, 01 Oct 2007 13:07:48 +0000 http://blog.ngedit.com/2007/09/05/desperate-to-stand-out/#comment-75268 gotal, sorry for the delay in answering. Thanks for the feedback. Indeed, I agree with the general principle, although I don't agree with the specific conclusions you draw. Indeed, one shouldn't hihglight what can be detected - stuff which should stand out should be highlighted. I do believe highlighting control flow is very helpful - not because I can detect it, but because you get accustomed to seeing loops in red, "if" blocks in green, "else" blocks in brown, etc... some useful extra hints: a 'break' that breaks a switch statement is colored in blue (as the switch block), while a 'break' that breaks a loop is colored in red (same as loops and 'continue'). This helps you see at a glance whether a loop has an early exit or not. The end result is that, once accustomed, you need not read the code to understand the control flow. That's why I think this highlighting is closer to semantics rather than to syntax. Other points are important, and I do plan to provide a lot of extra coloring possibilities in future versions. I don't agree with the comments thing, as they are often/usually out of sync, but I understand where you're coming from. Watch out for future versions, as this is a general area I want to focus on, and I think it's going to be pretty cool & useful! gotal, sorry for the delay in answering. Thanks for the feedback. Indeed, I agree with the general principle, although I don’t agree with the specific conclusions you draw.

Indeed, one shouldn’t hihglight what can be detected - stuff which should stand out should be highlighted. I do believe highlighting control flow is very helpful - not because I can detect it, but because you get accustomed to seeing loops in red, “if” blocks in green, “else” blocks in brown, etc… some useful extra hints: a ‘break’ that breaks a switch statement is colored in blue (as the switch block), while a ‘break’ that breaks a loop is colored in red (same as loops and ‘continue’). This helps you see at a glance whether a loop has an early exit or not. The end result is that, once accustomed, you need not read the code to understand the control flow. That’s why I think this highlighting is closer to semantics rather than to syntax.

Other points are important, and I do plan to provide a lot of extra coloring possibilities in future versions. I don’t agree with the comments thing, as they are often/usually out of sync, but I understand where you’re coming from.

Watch out for future versions, as this is a general area I want to focus on, and I think it’s going to be pretty cool & useful!

]]> By: gtoal http://blog.ngedit.com/2007/09/05/desperate-to-stand-out/#comment-71701 gtoal Thu, 20 Sep 2007 18:02:23 +0000 http://blog.ngedit.com/2007/09/05/desperate-to-stand-out/#comment-71701 "I was quite proud of the web page and its ‘bold’ look, although I knew it was a tad too aggressive. But she nailed it when she said what she thought: “it looks desperate to stand out”. Ouch! That kind of feedback can be hurtful at first, but it’s definitely the best kind of feedback you can get. " -- in the same spirit, the multiplicity of syntax highlighting colours is way too intrusive, and the vertical indentation lines just add confusing clutter. Just because your lexer can pick out keywords etc doesn't mean you must do so. Syntax highlighters emphasise the wrong thing anyway, a better model is folding or something like Knuth's literate programming. Emphasise the semantics rather than the keywords - for example, procedure calls should stand out, not the curly braces. I'd say that the comments should be the boldest text, except for the fact that in almost every program the comments end up no longer reflecting what's in the code, yet readers believe the comments even when the code differs. If you don't believe me, read this: i = i + 2; // INCREMENT LOOP COUNT BY ONE!!! :-) “I was quite proud of the web page and its ‘bold’ look, although I knew it was a tad too aggressive. But she nailed it when she said what she thought: “it looks desperate to stand out”. Ouch! That kind of feedback can be hurtful at first, but it’s definitely the best kind of feedback you can get. ” — in the same spirit, the multiplicity of syntax highlighting colours is way too intrusive, and the vertical indentation lines just add confusing clutter. Just because your lexer can pick out keywords etc doesn’t mean you must do so. Syntax highlighters emphasise the wrong thing anyway, a better model is folding or something like Knuth’s literate programming. Emphasise the semantics rather than the keywords - for example, procedure calls should stand out, not the curly braces. I’d say that the comments should be the boldest text, except for the fact that in almost every program the comments end up no longer reflecting what’s in the code, yet readers believe the comments even when the code differs. If you don’t believe me, read this:

i = i + 2; // INCREMENT LOOP COUNT BY ONE!!!

:-)

]]> By: J http://blog.ngedit.com/2007/09/05/desperate-to-stand-out/#comment-66707 J Thu, 06 Sep 2007 17:17:27 +0000 http://blog.ngedit.com/2007/09/05/desperate-to-stand-out/#comment-66707 Thanks Max. About Linux: in the longer term, definitely. I take a serious multiplatform approach to development - that's why I have been able to host 'ngvi', the vi/vim emulation core behind ViEmu, inside Word & Outlook, Visual Studio, SQL Server, and the current kodumi prototype. The code is totally system independent. My reason behind this is that, by definition, platform-dependency is not part of the essence, and I like to distill the code to its most essential elements. It also has technological and possible business advantages, but that's just a side effect. Also, Windows for sure and most probably OS X versions will come first, because of the commercial viability of the platforms. Thanks Max. About Linux: in the longer term, definitely.

I take a serious multiplatform approach to development - that’s why I have been able to host ‘ngvi’, the vi/vim emulation core behind ViEmu, inside Word & Outlook, Visual Studio, SQL Server, and the current kodumi prototype. The code is totally system independent.

My reason behind this is that, by definition, platform-dependency is not part of the essence, and I like to distill the code to its most essential elements. It also has technological and possible business advantages, but that’s just a side effect.

Also, Windows for sure and most probably OS X versions will come first, because of the commercial viability of the platforms.

]]> By: Max Ischenko http://blog.ngedit.com/2007/09/05/desperate-to-stand-out/#comment-66706 Max Ischenko Thu, 06 Sep 2007 17:13:09 +0000 http://blog.ngedit.com/2007/09/05/desperate-to-stand-out/#comment-66706 Best of luck with Kodumi. Btw, any chance it will be available for us Linux users? Best of luck with Kodumi.

Btw, any chance it will be available for us Linux users?

]]> By: J http://blog.ngedit.com/2007/09/05/desperate-to-stand-out/#comment-66407 J Wed, 05 Sep 2007 21:05:14 +0000 http://blog.ngedit.com/2007/09/05/desperate-to-stand-out/#comment-66407 Thanks for the good wishes! I can't wait myself either :) Thanks for the good wishes! I can’t wait myself either :)

]]> By: Tim Weiler http://blog.ngedit.com/2007/09/05/desperate-to-stand-out/#comment-66352 Tim Weiler Wed, 05 Sep 2007 17:25:46 +0000 http://blog.ngedit.com/2007/09/05/desperate-to-stand-out/#comment-66352 Good luck with kodumi, I can't wait to try it out. Good luck with kodumi, I can’t wait to try it out.

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