Re: [dev] Plain text editor that sucks less - an alternative to VIM?

From: Lee F. <REMOVED_UPON_REQUEST_AT_gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2014 10:49:48 -0400

On Wed, Jul 2, 2014 at 10:42 AM, Ryan O’Hara <rninty_AT_gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 2, 2014 at 7:30 AM, Lee F. <REMOVED_UPON_REQUEST_AT_gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Wed, Jul 2, 2014 at 10:21 AM, Charlie Kester <corky1951_AT_comcast.net> wrote:
>>> On Wed 02 Jul 2014 at 04:49:23 PDT FRIGN wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Yes, highlighting comments makes sense, as even the article suggests,
>>>> but this is not a central issue if you know how to encapsulate your
>>>> comments:
>>>>
>>>> /*
>>>> (...)
>>>> (...)
>>>> (...)
>>>> */
>>>>
>>>> is more error-prone and hard to read than
>>>>
>>>> /*
>>>> * (...)
>>>> * (...)
>>>> * (...)
>>>> */
>>>>
>>>> once the comments get longer.
>>>
>>>
>>> Agreed. But I'm often reading someone else's code and they're not
>>> always so considerate.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Why would the former be more error-prone? Or even harder to read?...In
>> my opinion they both have equal readability.
>>
>> The only issue I have with syntax highlighting is that many people
>> rely on it to know if what they're typing is correct syntax (which
>> means people have no idea what they're doing- in a sense training
>> wheels), and to visually scan source (why scroll through the entire
>> source looking for function f() when you can just run ctags or a
>> similar tool?). As people have pointed out too, compilers will usually
>> tell where you've made a mistake in syntax.
>>
>
> Quick, tell me whether /^http:(\/\/(?:[^/]+\/)+[/]final)$/ parses in Ruby.
> How about in JavaScript?
>
> The answer is obvious if you know your language and are able to do a
> quick scan through the literal, but syntax highlighting removes the
> effort entirely.
>

You make a very good point. The thing with regular expressions though
is people usually take a good minute or more to craft them (not
something like [0-9], but more like the example you gave). I would say
yes that parses in Ruby (if I was reading the code), because it was
there already. It's too bad though that the assumption all code works
as intended (or at all) is wrong...
Received on Wed Jul 02 2014 - 16:49:48 CEST