<div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 4:54 PM, Stephen Bloch <<a href="mailto:bloch@adelphi.edu" target="_blank">bloch@adelphi.edu</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"> See <a href="http://worrydream.com/LearnableProgramming/" target="_blank">http://worrydream.com/LearnableProgramming/</a> . A lot of inspiring and interesting ideas about how an IDE can make programs more comprehensible. Some of these ideas could be incorporated into DrRacket fairly easily, e.g. abstracting a block of code by wrapping a function definition around it. </blockquote><div> Some of the realizations are amazing! I'm wondering how well all these nice features carry on to different cases though. </div> </div>I've been willing to do something similar for some time now, too. You prodded me sufficiently to do that for variables (way simpler than what is presented on the website though!): With the script-plugin package installed [1], create a new script and replace the template code with the following: #lang racket/gui ; Sample identity function: ;; string? -> (or/c string? #f) (provide item-callback) (define (item-callback str) (define var (get-text-from-user "Variable Abstraction" "Variable name:" #:validate (ë(s)#t))) (if var (begin (send the-clipboard set-clipboard-string (string-append "(define " var " " str ")") 0) var) str)) Save the file, and a new menu entry should appear in the Scripts menu. The script in action: <a href="http://youtu.be/qgjAZd4eBBY">http://youtu.be/qgjAZd4eBBY</a> Not prodded enough to do it for functions yet ;) Laurent [1] <a href="http://planet.racket-lang.org/display.ss?package=script-plugin.plt&owner=orseau">http://planet.racket-lang.org/display.ss?package=script-plugin.plt&owner=orseau</a>