Shaping --
If you do embark on the effort you propose below, I would be happy to work on
it with you (although I would think you would want to find at least one old
hand to participate as well). What you describe is very close to what I intend
for my own factor-like environment that I described to you previously and so
I'm going to be doing a lot of the same design work anyway.
Sounds like a good project to sink one's teeth into for really going up the
factor learning curve.
Regards,
Mike
> From: shap...@charter.net
> To: factor-talk@lists.sourceforge.net
> Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2010 21:15:10 -0600
> Subject: [Factor-talk] Integrating Browser functionality into Listener: John
> Benediktsson's Syntax Highlighting
>
> Hi John/all.
>
> I still have some Git exercises and maintenance to do tonight, but I tripped
> over this http://planet.factorcode.org/ and want to see where it might lead.
>
> The syntax highlighting is interesting to me. I'm wondering whether we can
> change the Listener GUI into a color vocab browser that focuses more on code
> and less on the navigation links and doc and examples, as in the current
> Browser. There is a place for those too, obviously, but I'm trying to change
> the emphasis a little to make development faster and to reduce the amount of
> typing of words into the Listener.
>
> One possibility: Split the Listener vertically, placing the usual Listener
> command line progression on, say, the right side, and another pane on the
> left. The idea is that, when you need to know what a word means, because you
> are trying to use it, or are wondering whether you even have the right word
> or concept in mind, you can type it into the Listener, and instead of doing
>
> \ some-word see
>
> you could instead dynamically search for the word's definition by either
> clicking on the word or just hovering over it. I'm thinking that if you
> access and display the word's definition on hover-over, instead of on
> click-on, you could rapidly scan colored formatted word definitions in the
> left pane. You could have, say, a line of words entered into the Listener,
> scan over them left to right (or whichever way) with your mouse, looking at
> their color definitions flash through the pane on the left. When you hit a
> word that is especially interesting/confusing, you click on it to lock that
> definition into the left pain. You can now wander up to the definition in
> the left pane with your mouse and continue the process of scanning over its
> words, drilling down toward primitives, until you are convinced you
> understand enough to complete the expression at hand. Every time you want
> to drill, stop scanning with your mouse and click on the interesting word to
> popup yet another pane below the one you were in when you clicked on the
> interesting word. Or, you could stack your definition windows on top of each
> other, as you drill, and provide a context menu "back" command, or just use
> some forward/backward arrows in the GUI to go back and then go forward
> again, just as you would in the HTML help Browser. So why do this?
>
> If you are in a coding app and not a browsing app, you could not only scan
> and study as you drill, you can also scan and edit the command line you are
> building. Maybe Ctrl-click on a word to append it to the end of the
> Listener's command line. (Maybe the other way: Ctrl-click for doc and
> click for appending.)
>
> I want to get around faster, and to assemble correct Factor expressions, the
> first time. I don't want to see an example for a word before I see the code
> for the word. The reason for this is subtle but important: I want to
> understand the words increasingly quickly when I read them and their
> definitions, and not by remembering necessarily several favorite examples,
> which memories I will acquire anyway if I can use the word successfully in
> my own word definitions a few times. Having a bad time reading words
> creates a drive to improve the words, especially because you are now reading
> definitions more often than examples (which I think I would want to put in a
> nearby pane or in an examples tab in the same pane). I don't want to use
> English explanations and examples as crutches for reading Factor fluently.
> I want to write better words and patterns of them. Being required to read
> definitions first may be a healthy source of pressure in that direction.
>
> I'm also thinking that the stack-effect data could be more binding than it
> currently is. I noticed while compiling some new words that the compiler
> will infer a stack-effect, and tell you when you've written it incorrectly.
> This looks almost binding. So my suggestion/question is: Can we use the
> stack effects to check at least the superficial (type- and count-based)
> correctness of a forth expression, as it is assembled on a Listener command
> line?
>
> Also, concerning literals and stack objects, when you mouse-scan those, you
> could get an inspector, also on the left in its own pane, under your last
> viewed definition pane. Click on the literal or stack object, and your
> inspector locks in place for further study and drilling. Similarly provide
> arrows to go back and forth through your stacked inspectors, so that you
> don't clutter the screen with windows, thereby created larger saccades,
> which often reduce thinking- and coordination- efficiency (at least for me).
>
> I'm open to suggestions on any aspect of this, but my overall objective is
> to integrate the contents and value of the help Browser into an expanded
> Listener GUI, so that coding and learning are faster, because all the code
> is alive, connected, colored, formatted, and append-able at the Listener's
> prompt, with minimal GUI gesturing and less typing.
>
> Thoughts anyone?
>
>
> Shaping
>
>
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