[plt-scheme] Re: On C#

On May 22, 2007, at 2:12 PM, Robby Findler wrote:

> I'm guessing that the most helpful completions will be when methods
> from the mred GUI classes are completed, so we want some approximation
> to the truth that includes them.
>
> My (long-standing, never implemented) thought is to look at the front
> of the file for `require' lines, then somehow map those to some
> (cached) version of their exports and maybe method names too.

That's what I had in mind.

> Perhaps this is something I should be extracting from the  
> documentation.

Or require's could come with auxiliaries. -- Matthias




>
> Robby
>
> On 5/22/07, Matthias Felleisen <matthias at ccs.neu.edu> wrote:
>> You do compute the list of defined names in the (define drop-down  
>> menu.
>>
>> You could compute the list of all methods in scope.
>>
>> So if we could provide a drop-down menu of possible choices after one
>> or two letters we could still help syntactically and typ-ologically
>> challenged people like those Paulo describes.
>>
>> Perhaps we could even introduce Hungarian typing, as in x:button, to
>> help the tool. If the programmer can't figure out the type of the
>> thing, too bad; there'll be a long list of names (perhaps a dozen or
>> two). If he can -- power to him! -- he also gets advantages in terms
>> of typing within drscheme.
>>
>> -- Matthias
>>
>> P.S. And then there is Rohann's EMACS mode. You don't have to use
>> DrScheme to use PLT Scheme.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On May 22, 2007, at 12:09 PM, Robby Findler wrote:
>>
>> > Yeah -- one of the standard complaints. :)
>> >
>> > Completing the methods of a class is tricky, since you don't have a
>> > type system to tell you what the pool of methods is.
>> >
>> > You can do completion based on the keywords in, say, the hdindex  
>> and
>> > keywords files you find in the documentation directories. That's
>> > probably the easiest approximation.
>> >
>> > Good luck with your research!
>> >
>> > Robby
>> >
>> > On 5/22/07, Paulo J. Matos <pocm at soton.ac.uk> wrote:
>> >> Ok, so let me explain the context so that everyone understands the
>> >> issue.
>> >>
>> >> Here in University of Southampton, Group of Dependable Systems and
>> >> Software Engineering we have a Software Engineering Special  
>> Interest
>> >> Group where we meet every week. This week we talked about
>> >> [requirements] traceability in agile methods. One of the  
>> suggestions
>> >> that came up was that we could develop a traceability tool which
>> >> helps
>> >> user trace requirements/tests/code using linking identifiers,  
>> so that
>> >> you can for example say: This code implements this requirement or,
>> >> this test was developed to test this code in mind. Now guess you
>> >> change a requirement, the tool might alert you that you need to
>> >> change
>> >> the code at that point, etc etc.
>> >>
>> >> Well, as in a discussion lots of issues came to mind, one of  
>> them was
>> >> the programming language we could use.
>> >> (the resulting opinions from the 6 that were present)
>> >> - Java was down immediately since most of us didn't want to mess
>> >> with Java.
>> >> - C/C++ was too low level for some.
>> >> - Haskell, Dylan were too mystic and 'mathematical' for others.
>> >> - C# came up as a possibility
>> >>
>> >> Then I suggested PLTScheme or if people are against it, Ocaml.
>> >>
>> >> After a lot of discussion Ocaml was scratched. C# and PLTScheme  
>> were
>> >> now up to discussion. I was mentioning that I had implemented some
>> >> IDE
>> >> features in an internal tool and that I had tried to implement
>> >> them in
>> >> PLTScheme without success mainly because I do not know the API  
>> and I
>> >> was not yet able to find examples to guide me through implementing
>> >> stuff like that. The main feature which was complained about was:
>> >> - Facility to get a list of class methods when you do "(send  
>> class "
>> >>
>> >> This is not really important but what I saw is that it is _really_
>> >> important for them who are not used to programming in Scheme.
>> >> However,
>> >> most, but not all, are inclined to C#, not because they know the
>> >> language but because the IDE has this feature.
>> >>
>> >> It's quite hard to beat such argument. No matter saying that's not
>> >> the
>> >> important thing. So, I told them I would try to look at the  
>> code and
>> >> see if it's easy to implement and I'll do a PLTScheme demo next  
>> week
>> >> so that they could see the IDE and some of the language  
>> features of
>> >> interest to us.
>> >>
>> >> In fact, in a way I understand them, because most of them have
>> >> used in
>> >> their classes during their degree Eclipse, or .NET and now if they
>> >> don't see an IDE full of class trees, way to generate code by  
>> filling
>> >> a couple of boxes etc, they get scared. One of the colleagues  
>> which
>> >> also supports Scheme because he wants to learn something new said
>> >> that
>> >> as PhD students we need to research new possibilities instead of
>> >> getting stuck to the traditional ways but that remark didn't  
>> help to
>> >> the discussion, anyway.
>> >>
>> >> Another thing I mentioned, probably a year ago but can't find  
>> it in
>> >> the mailing list would be to have a live helper frame showing  
>> up help
>> >> on the current keyword. Still I'm having a lot to do and I'm  
>> looking
>> >> at some syntax-case publications at the moment so trying to look
>> >> deeply into the DrScheme tools API or source code is  
>> unfortunately a
>> >> no go.
>> >>
>> >> So, that's it.
>> >>
>> >> Sorry for posting this to the wrong list but I was probably  
>> thinking
>> >> about plt-scheme and just wrote it in the sender instead of the
>> >> recipients name. Frustrating thing is, I noticed immediately after
>> >> pressing send. I still tried discard but gmail was too fast and  
>> sent
>> >> the email anyway.
>> >>
>> >> Oh well... :)
>> >>
>> >> Cheers,
>> >>
>> >> Paulo Matos
>> >>
>> >> On 5/22/07, Grant Rettke <grettke at acm.org> wrote:
>> >> > It is so hard to accept that with which we are not familiar.
>> >> >
>> >> > I can't stand reading dark on light for example...as you well
>> >> know :) (thanks!)
>> >> >
>> >> > On 5/22/07, Robby Findler <robby at cs.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>> >> > > Still, you tantalize us :)
>> >> > >
>> >> > > Are the missing niceties the usual things people complain
>> >> about (tab
>> >> > > completion, for example), or are they new ones?
>> >> > >
>> >> > > Robby
>> >> > > _________________________________________________
>> >> > >   For list-related administrative tasks:
>> >> > >   http://list.cs.brown.edu/mailman/listinfo/plt-scheme
>> >> > >
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Paulo Jorge Matos - pocm at soton.ac.uk
>> >> http://www.personal.soton.ac.uk/pocm
>> >> PhD Student @ ECS
>> >> University of Southampton, UK
>> >>
>> > _________________________________________________
>> >  For list-related administrative tasks:
>> >  http://list.cs.brown.edu/mailman/listinfo/plt-scheme
>>
>>
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