Re:Visual Programming Doesn’t Suck
by aasasd on Tuesday January 29, 2019 @09:26PM
(#19032074)
> It would be nice if that <set of items> step was treated as an unordered set instead of an ordered one, with editors having a better understanding of how to bring up relevant elements of the set onto your screen at the same time.
IDEs sorta move in that direction, though not too fast. You can list methods in a class, jump to the definition of a method, etc.
Not many seem to realize that Java's strict OOP structure is (or was) a mover of IDE functionality: you can statically describe the structure of the entire program at a high level, and code is only contained in methods, so you have methods as organizational units, to which you navigate and otherwise reason. So now we have IDE functionality that can move methods and variables around like they're toy blocks.
IDEs sorta move in that direction, though not too fast. You can list methods in a class, jump to the definition of a method, etc.
Not many seem to realize that Java's strict OOP structure is (or was) a mover of IDE functionality: you can statically describe the structure of the entire program at a high level, and code is only contained in methods, so you have methods as organizational units, to which you navigate and otherwise reason. So now we have IDE functionality that can move methods and variables around like they're toy blocks.