Removing D embedded in HTML feature

[Christopher Wright]

Jim Hewes wrote:
> 
> "Bjoern" <nanali at nospam-wanadoo.fr> wrote in message 
> news:fsouvv$2r1d$1 at digitalmars.com...
>>
>> Please keep it.
>>
>> I am conviced that "text only" is not enough for next generation code 
>> editors. a few examples :
>>
>> a database application could embedd an Entity Relationship model. This 
>> could be a simple static graphic, or even an interactive live model 
>> which generates D code. (using java applets, ActiveX, ...)
>>
>> D has strong OOP features, why not having an interactive UML modeler 
>> within the code.
>>
>> D has builtin profiler support, why not embedding a charts, coloring 
>> time critical sections.
>>
>> extented Documentation support
>>
>> I am convinced that, once the first HTML base D code-editor is 
>> released, several new, fantastic ideas will be born.
>>
>> I guess java applets can be used as code generators, code watcher 
>> (safeD, without using the compiler) ....
>>
>> I thinking about : "how a next generation code editor should look 
>> like" for quit a while and hope to implement an HTML based (or 
>> hypertext based in general) Editor for D for use in my IDE.
>>
>> Bjoern
>>
> 
> Although I keep an eye on these newsgroups and I think D looks nice, I'm 
> not currently using it. So I wouldn't want to vote on the HTML thing. 
> But I agree about code editors.
> 
> I'm kind of surprised, software as gotten to the advanced level it has 
> over the past 20 years or so, and we're still writing source code in 
> ASCII text files. I'm using Visual Studio 2005/2008 to do C++ and C# and 
> it's a great achievement. But we're still using ASCII text files.
> For years I've wanted to draw block diagrams and flow charts right in 
> the code to document what's going on. How great would it be if you could 
> use Microsoft Word to write code with and also draw your diagrams 
> alongside? You could use bold and italics formatting to emphasize 
> important code. Change the size of text, add tables, etc. The compiler 
> doesn't have to understand MS-Word format. Rather, the editor (or some 
> other utility) could just export the ASCII for the compiler's 
> consumption. Perhaps better, create a standard file format for code that 
> can handle graphics and other documentation. Then to avoid the step of 
> exporting the raw ASCII, you can have the file format store the actual 
> code in a separate section that's easy for compilers to find. Then 
> compilers can navigate to that section of the file and ignore everything 
> else. I don't think it's too much to expect standards for source code 
> files, given that standardization seems to have moved along for things 
> like the C++ library and C++98 and 0x. </rant>
> 
> Jim Hewes

1. No formatting in code. Syntax highlighting is fine, but that's an 
end-user thing. Tabs versus spaces should be an end-user thing, too. (I 
just dealt with a professor distributing SQL in Powerpoint. 32pt Comic 
Sans. Ugh.)

2. Keep the code as portable as possible. UTF8 for the win. Not just 
because the code has to travel between computers and operating systems, 
but because people fight wars over editors.

3. It already takes me five minutes to check out a fresh copy of my 
projects at work. If the files contained formatting data, they'd be a 
fair bit larger, which would increase that time. That would be annoying.

4. UML is terrible. Don't bring it into source code.

Now, if you wanted tables and such in comments, fine. I think they'd be 
overused and annoying, but I can see the utility.