Re: Syntax-directed editors and Lisp

John R. Bane (bane@cs.umd.edu)
2 Aug 1994 22:45:45 -0400

In article <31mf4d$of7@iris.mbvlab.wpafb.af.mil> gunderso@edfuc4.ctis.af.mil (Alan Gunderson) writes:
>
>Having done a lot of InterLisp-D programming using an earlier version of SEdit
>called DEdit, I have several observations. It was so easy to cut and
>paste forms that a lot of code ended up being duplicated in functions rather
>than the common code being generalized into seperate functions. Also, the
>InterLisp-D functions easily grew into much larger pieces of code than was
>appropriate, e.g., a lot of functions grow in excess of 100 lines of code.
>
That's interesting; I used DEdit for about a year before SEdit came out
(and dropped DEdit like a hot rock). DEdit had a big window for your code
and a smaller attached window showing the contents of the cut buffer, whereas
SEdit doesn't display the cut buffer - actually it doesn't even really *have*
a cut buffer: you move text around using the normal Interlisp convention
of shift-selecting (put insert point at destination, hold down shift key and
select source, release shift to copy).

Also, DEdit was occasionally flaky when used to edit more than one function
simultaneously, as I recall. SEdit is a *much* better citizen in that respect.

Most of the big functions I ran into in Interlisp were unspeakably low-level
system code that were written as big PROGs for speed reasons; I don't recall
a lot of bigness for the sake of bigness.

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