Peter Hosey

@boredzo

Also @boredzo@mastodon.social.

they/them
boredzo.org/

Breaker of binaries. Sweary but friendly. See also @TheMatrixDotGIF and @boredzo-kitchen-diary.

Mastodon

mastodon.social/@boredzo

Blog

boredzo.org/blog/

Peter Hosey @boredzo11/6/2023, 8:17 AM

Nire Bryce @NireBryce

Nire Bryce @NireBryce11/6/2023, 6:46 AM

I don't want a code minimap I want a code Table of Contents.

Peter Hosey @boredzo11/6/2023, 8:17 AM

Having previously argued that programming is literally writing, I think there's something to this idea (even if I do find minimaps helpful sometimes).

What would a table of contents look like for program code? While we're at it, how about an index?

Glossaries also present some attractive possibilities. Think of every codebase you've ever encountered where you were like “OK but what does a _____ actually do? What does it mean to ______ a ______?”.

Figures and tables are already in use in some limited ways. How can we expand this? (Figures presumably would mean images embedded in comments. Does anything support that yet?)

If programming is writing for humans first and the computer second, which it is, then what tools do we use, what facilities do we provide, in writing for humans-only that we ought to bring in to programming?

#programming #writing #programming is writing #steal the good silverware from every drawer

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in reply to @NireBryce's post:

Hazel Rose Dyne @HordeMommy11/6/2023, 6:50 AM

I regret to inform you that this exists in emacs

Nire Bryce @NireBryce11/6/2023, 6:53 AM

that means it might as well not exist because i don't use that de

Hazel Rose Dyne @HordeMommy11/6/2023, 6:58 AM

Hence the regret. Hopefully this is like org-mode where eventually someone from the real world will create a better version of what we're trying to do and allow people who aren't touching emacs 27 hrs/day to use it.

in reply to @boredzo's post:

Nire Bryce @NireBryce11/6/2023, 5:52 PM

I'm thinking user defined but with the llms who knows

🩷 Mina 💜@Minalien11/6/2023, 6:28 PM

What would a table of contents look like for program code?

With some thoughtful organization, code regions (#pragma region, //#region, //MARK: and //MARK: -) can be a decent starting point for something like this if using an IDE that can take advantage of it (though the only thing I know of off-hand that does this is Xcode displaying the MARK comments in the breadcrumb) if you browse it.

It would be great to see nested regions picked up and turned into a ToC hierarchy.

(Figures presumably would mean images embedded in comments. Does anything support that yet?)

Something like having markdown support for comments could be a good approach to this, with images themselves living in the project folder somewhere. This would give us rich text to an extent, without sacrificing tooling compatibility (other IDEs, version control software, diffing software, etc).

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