From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-Id: <200106180852.KAA04199@boris.cd.chalmers.se> To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Cc: lac@cd.chalmers.se Subject: Re: [9fans] source code as data not text In-reply-to: Your message of "Mon, 18 Jun 2001 01:31:13 BST." <00d701c0f78d$fb26d750$6401a8c0@freeze2k> From: Laura Creighton Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 10:52:14 +0200 Topicbox-Message-UUID: bc34efc0-eac9-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 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.