Re: [9fans] source code as data not text

[Laura Creighton <lac@cd.chalmers.se>]

The problem with putting source code in a database is that you then need
complicated database tools to read your source code.  Then it is harder
to use pipes and shellscripts.  When David Slocum, Aaron Markus, somebody
whose name I forget did a study of bit-map fonts and their effect
on the comprehension of C code for a DARPA grant we discovered that it
was much better to build a parser in a displaying tool that you could
make display plain ascii any way you like by some sort of parsing rule,
as opposed to making the source code itself complicated.

In our efforts to learn this we discovered that it is very tough on your
experiemental method to have different versions of source code that are
supposed to be identical except for formatting details.  They will vary.
We wasted a fair bit of time proving conclusively that students who
are new to C have a hard time understanding it when you have left out
the odd line or character by mistake, and the like.

Things worked better when the person whose name I can't remember and
I hacked the C pre-processor and the compiler to produce, instead of
machine code, bit maps (which was radical new technology at the time)
which we could then baffle more students with.

There is also the helpless factor.  On occasion I have had to write
C code in MS word.  It goes very badly.  I very much feel a helpless
prisoner while this is going on; locked inside layers and layers of
gorp which contribute absolutely nothing towards my main goal, making
the machine do what I want it to do.  It makes writing code hard for me.

Syntax highlighting does catch errors.  Does it make you lazier about not
making errors in the first place?  How can we test this hypothesis?  I
know people who never used line editors like ed extensively are 
surprised when old ed hackers sit down and write 20, 50, 100 lines of
code, one line right after each other, without going back and fiddling with
bits.  If you started writing programs when there was no cursor addressing,
or screen editors (or they were banned because of the load they 
put on those old machines) this is no trick at all.

Laura

ps. we are all safe and sound here.  We should all be cleaned up soon.
But I never made it to the used computer store; Saturday's revised
demonstration path made to miss the trashed out area went right down the
street where I live.  Thanks for all the support.