[plt-scheme] The Stepper

On Jun 14, 2005, at 4:12 PM, Stephen Bloch wrote:

>  For list-related administrative tasks:
>  http://list.cs.brown.edu/mailman/listinfo/plt-scheme
>
> I've been kvetching from time to time for a couple of years that 
> DrScheme's Stepper only applies to the Definitions window; there's no 
> way to single-step an expression you've typed in the Interactions 
> window.  It feels much more natural to me for "single-stepping" to be 
> a mode, orthogonal to the question of whether you're executing a batch 
> of expressions in the definitions window or a single expression in the 
> interactions window.  So Saturday night after the TeachScheme! 
> workshop, I started writing up a possible specification (state 
> diagrams and all that) for how I think the GUI should behave with 
> respect to single-stepping.
>
> So here's my question.  Is the Stepper about to be replaced by 
> something rich and strange, perhaps based on MzTake?  If so, is it a 
> waste of my time to specify how I think the Stepper should behave?  ( 
> I suspect that even if the Stepper is replaced, it'll still need a 
> beginner-friendly interface with some resemblance to the current 
> Stepper, and that should probably be independent of which window 
> you're executing from.)

1. I have always wanted what you suggest. The stepper as it works now 
has been a stop-gap for, oh, 7 or 8 years now.

2. Do so and get paid for it. See the NYC-based Lisp challenge for 
Google Coding during the summer.

3. We are also reorganizing the stepper but we are focusing on the 
backend and other languages for now.