On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 10:44 AM, edream <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Why so long with the interactive search -- that is THE FEATURE that I
>> NEED in an editor -- it is really remarkable how much more efficient it
>> is than having to decide how much a search term I need to type, and then
>> search for it!
>
> Again, because none of Leo's power users has asked for it.  Leo does
> have isearch commands.  At present they are limited to the present
> node, but there is at least the start of cross-node matches.  It's
> hairy.  This will be this weeks work.
>
> The lack of isearch hasn't bothered me, but maybe I'm missing
> something truly useful.  OTOH, sometimes Leo's environment changes the
> design point.

I use incremental search as basically my main means of navigating
through a large file of code.  Basically when I want to go somewhere
in the code I try to recall a short, fairly uncommon string of letters
that was associated with that place.  Like maybe I recall that I used
the word "inaccurate" in a comment in the function I'm looking for,
I'll just start searching for "inac" and since I already picked it to
be a not-so-common word, usually by the 4th or 5th character I've
arrived where I want to be.  The word could also be a variable name or
part of the function name.

Re: leo fulfilling Robin's dream (a dream which I share)
[Disclaimer: my knowlege of Leo come only from going through a few of
the tutorials just now]
It seems to me that Leo kind of oversteps the bounds, going from being
an editor to being a different way to work.  More like a text file
IDE.  That's fine but I think (for better or worse) what most people
want something that is essentially just an editor.  It seems Leo wants
me to turn every little editing task into some kind of
hierarchy-building exercise.  I have to admit I've never liked any of
the "code folding" or "outline view" modes in any product I've ever
used.  I don't find them even remotely compelling.  I'd rather just
have things presented simply, with a good way to navigate around
(read, powerful search).   It's kind of the same philosophy as you see
in Sherlock and other desktop search paradigms these days.  I don't
want to spend time managing or navigating hierarchies.  I just want to
be able to jump directly to what I need by typing a few letters.  I'm
sure there are great benefits to the Leo approach but, not being a fan
of outlines, these things don't jump out at me.

I also really don't like the idea of my directories becoming littered
with .leo files all over the place.  Or the idea of my files
themselves becoming littered with funky comments that only Leo
understands.  I think that just won't fly in an environment where you
work on code with other people.

Looking forward to your response.

--bb

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