[plt-scheme] An Editors Tale

From: Paulo Jorge de Oliveira Cantante de Matos (pocm at netvisao.pt)
Date: Fri Jan 23 11:27:11 EST 2004

I'm sorry for the lot of awful typos in the initial email:
In the morning I wake up and start my Linux system, when I startx,
DrScheme shows up and I continue coding what I left when I went to bed.
DrScheme after all is our eyes into our scheme programming. When most
of us (ok, not those who use Emacs with MzScheme) think about
programming in Scheme we imagine a DrScheme window. It's incredible
how DrScheme is so good and so helpful with its very nice test suite,
help manuals always at hand, etc... however when it's time to go to bed
I dream
about the same DrScheme with a different visual appearance and new
features. I can't understand why is (in my oppinion) so 'ugly'. Ok, it's
not DrScheme fault, but xWindows/wxxt or whatever. My question is: how
much wanted and how difficult it is to build a GTK or other GUI toolkit
DrScheme interface?  
AFAIK it is pretty difficult since it seems DrScheme is tightly
integrated into xWindows. Would MrEd API have to be rewritten?
I think a more professional look would not only help PLT Scheme to have
a wider audience outside universities but would also help those who
program in DrScheme to cheer up. Features like automatic code generation
for
classes, methods, getters and setters for example would be very, very
nice. A tabbed window with multiple files open would also be nice...
when I imagine this it gets a little orgasmic. With such an IDE and
Scheme
at my fingertips I think I would be able to sleep even better after a
hard day. :)

I would like thoughts about this...
With this post I don't mean DrScheme interface is trash, I like it very
much... consider my idea as a personal opinion of improvement.

Cheers,

Paulo Matos


On Fri, 2004-01-23 at 16:08, Paulo Jorge de Oliveira Cantante de Matos
wrote:
>   For list-related administrative tasks:
>   http://list.cs.brown.edu/mailman/listinfo/plt-scheme
> 
> In the morning I wake up and start my Linux system, when I startx
> DrScheme shows up and I continue coding what I left when I went to bed.
> DrScheme after all is our eyes in to our scheme programming. When most
> of us (ok, not those who use Emacs with MzScheme) think about
> programming in Scheme they imagina a DrScheme window. It's incredible
> how DrScheme is so good and so helpful with its very nice test suite and
> help manuals always at hand however when it's time to go to bed I dream
> about the same DrScheme with a different visual appearance and new
> features. I can't understand why is (in my oppinion) so 'ugly'. Ok, it's
> not DrScheme fault, but xWindows/wxxt or whatever. My question is: how
> much wanted and how difficult it is to build a GTK or other GUI toolkit
> DrScheme interface?  
> AFAIK it seems pretty difficult since it seems DrScheme is so tightly
> integrated into xWindows. Would MrEd API have to be rewritten?
> I think a more professional look would not only help PLT Scheme to have
> a wider audience outside universities but would also help those who
> program in DrScheme. Features like automatic code generation for
> classes, methods, getters and setters for example would be very, very
> nice. A tabbed window with multiple files open would also be nice...
> when I imagine this it's a little orgasmic. With such an IDE and Scheme
> at my fingertips I think I would be able to sleep even better after a
> hard day. :)
> 
> I would like thoughts about this...
> With this post I don't mean DrScheme interface is trash, I like it very
> much... consider my idea as a personal opinion of improvement.
> 
> Cheers,
-- 

Paulo J. Matos : pocm [_at_] mega . ist . utl . pt
Instituto Superior Tecnico - Lisbon
Computer and Software Eng. - A.I.
 - > http://mega.ist.utl.pt/~pocm
---
        -> God had a deadline...
                So, he wrote it all in Lisp!



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