<div dir="ltr"><br><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Oct 10, 2013 at 1:21 AM, Tobias Pape <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:Das.Linux@gmx.de" target="_blank">Das.Linux@gmx.de</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Hi<br>
<div><div class="h5">On 10.10.2013, at 09:41, Bert Freudenberg <<a href="mailto:bert@freudenbergs.de">bert@freudenbergs.de</a>> wrote:<br>
<br>
> On 2013-10-09, at 23:50, Tobias Pape <<a href="mailto:Das.Linux@gmx.de">Das.Linux@gmx.de</a>> wrote:<br>
><br>
>> Am 09.10.2013 um 10:34 schrieb Bert Freudenberg <<a href="mailto:bert@freudenbergs.de">bert@freudenbergs.de</a>>:<br>
>>><br>
>>> On 08.10.2013, at 23:46, tim Rowledge <<a href="mailto:tim@rowledge.org">tim@rowledge.org</a>> wrote:<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> On 08-10-2013, at 2:14 PM, Eliot Miranda <<a href="mailto:eliot.miranda@gmail.com">eliot.miranda@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
>>>>><br>
>>>>> So what does a file-out look like? What's the textual/interchange format e.g. in a Monticello package?<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> Not having looked at Tobias' stuff yet, I'm going to guess that one could use the same style-embedding that we already have<br>
>>><br>
>>> ... except that gets dropped by MC.<br>
>>><br>
>><br>
>> yeah, for our tools, we re-enabled that.<br>
>> the source is Text then and no pure String.<br>
>> At first the compiler was confused, but a few<br>
>> well-thrown #asString’s made everyone happy<br>
>> again. But I understand methods with style are<br>
>> strange or even confusing. Should we try that out?<br>
>><br>
>> best<br>
>> -Tobias<br>
><br>
> I'd like that. Having rich text as source code used to be a pretty nifty feature. But after we switched to MC and turned on syntax highlighting it did not get used any more.<br>
<br>
</div></div>The problem is NOT MC.<br>
MC merely serializes what it gets… if it's String, it serializes Strings<br>
if it's text, it serializes text. (Which _isn't_ true for the <a href="http://sources.st" target="_blank">sources.st</a>,<br>
tho… doable there, but that is an entirely different story).<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>+1.</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
The problem I see is syntax highlighting. I personally want that.<br>
But, eg, inside comments I probably want to be free to do what I like.<br>
Second problem: when I style literal strings, do they get Text (that<br>
would be soooo cool) or stay they strings? Also, what style is<br>
the syntax highlighter allowed to remove?<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Can you say preferences? Clearly, if the system can support styled code it can support auto-formatting or auto-syntax-highlighting. But if one's feeling get hurt when someone reformats a method one has worked on when they make a trivial change, think how pissed one is going to be when one;s beautifully styled text gets auto-syntax-highlighted when someone makes a fix.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Personally I find syntax highlighting a must-have; it makes a huge difference in both readability /and/ writability. I used to not like it finding it gaudy (I never used it when I worked on VisualWorks). But once I'd spent a few months with it I started to find it really, really potent.</div>
<div><br></div><div>In Newspeak we use syntax highlighting, but aestheticians (who I respect) have chosen a particularly muted scheme, with black, grey and blue as essentially the only colours. I find this code harder to read and write than the gaudy squeak code with its greens and reds and blues and blacks.</div>
<div><br></div><div>For as long as I can remember, working in Smalltalk teams, people have disagreed passionately about formatting. Kent Beck wrote a decent book which is a lot about formatting (and being a visual thinker I love rectangular block), but it doesn't sway many people. So I would lean towards syntax highlighting and auto-formatting and away from fancier manual styling options. To be clear I'm for hyper-links and richer comment formats, even floating comments, if they can be serialized and manually edited easily. But I do think focussing on adding non-functional, purely aesthetic formatting options is heading for a ton of communal pain. For me it doesn't fit a communal system.</div>
</div><div><br></div>-- <br>best,<div>Eliot</div>
</div></div>