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| == Yi ideas ==
| | [[Category:Applications]] |
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| This page is meant to gather ideas people have for
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| [http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~dons/yi.html Yi], an extensible editor | |
| written in Haskell.
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| Coming from an Emacs background, the current version of Yi lacks a few
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| things I think are essential, mainly the introspection capabilities
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| of Emacs. On of the main problems is that Yi is based on purely
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| compiled code --- there is little or no interaction with the run-time
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| system.
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| Ideally, the next version of Yi would be based on a (modified?)
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| version of GHCi, maybe taking advantage of package GHC.
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| === Emacs goodness ===
| | [[Image:Yi-logo.png]] |
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| The following are things I like about Emacs, as an extensible
| | == About == |
| environment:
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| ; Really good online documentation
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| : Emacs can tell you a lot about a function or variable with a
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| : keypress--- the current value, where it is declared, and a hypertext
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| : information string
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| ; Extensibility
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| : All (good) apps allow users to extend, through, e.g., hooks --- a
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| : list of functions that are run before/after some event (like saving
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| : a file)
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| ; Integration
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| : It is really easy in Emacs to have one package interact with
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| : another. Thus, I can, e.g., insert a new appointment from my mail app into
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| : the diary.
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| ; Everything is Lisp
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| : Ignoring the actual language, everything is handled in a uniform
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| : language --- from binding keys to writing apps.
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| ; Easy to start hacking
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| : I can start playing with the system from the second I start up, and
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| : things pretty much work as expected. I.e., I can type a bit of code
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| : in, execute it, and the result is displayed in the minibuffer. The
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| : good docs help immeasurably.
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| ; Written for the frequent user
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| : Lots of key shortcuts (and famous for it). There are still menus,
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| : for those who like em, but you aren't forced to pretend you just
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| : started using it.
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| ; A tonne of code
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| : Well, Haskell has this to some degree. Haskell is (IMHO) much
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| : easier to write than ELisp, so maybe people will be encouraged to contribute.
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| === Emacs badness ===
| | Yi is a text editor written in Haskell and extensible in Haskell. |
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| So, why replace it?:
| | == External links == |
| ; ELisp
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| : Dynamically scoped, Dynamically typed, ugly, old. 'Nuff said
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| ; What's a Parser?
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| : A lot of apps in emacs do stuff with text, usually text that is in
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| : some language. There is no standard parser (like, e.g. parsec), so
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| : a lot of it is ugly handwritten spaghetti. This also means that
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| : adding analysis tools isn't really done (or done nicely).
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| ; ELisp again
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| : Haskell is a lot cleaner to write, especially because of the large
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| : number of libraries.
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| === Emacs maybeness (?) ===
| | * Website: http://yi-editor.github.io/ |
| | | * Repository: https://github.com/yi-editor/yi |
| Some things that are sometimes bad, sometimes good:
| | * Hackage page: http://hackage.haskell.org/package/yi |
| ; Everything is a buffer
| | * IRC channel: #yi on Freenode |
| : Makes some sense, but sometimes doesn't. It is nice to have uniform | |
| : key bindings do the right thing (e.g., C-Space sets the mark, and
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| : the region can then be used, e.g. to delete a sequence of emails in Wl)
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| : Sometimes, however, you just want some sort of GUI widget.
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| :
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| : OTOH, having the minibuffer be a special kind of buffer is a good idea.
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| ; Properties
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| : It is possible to associate arbitrary properties with symbols. This
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| : means you can annotate a symbol and then use that information at a
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| : later date | |
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| === Ideas ===
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| An extension to GHCi to support documentation of symbols.
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| - This seems to be (reasonably) straightforward, as GHCi already has :info. It would mean hacking the type environment (what about values?) to add documentation information. The main problem would seem to be populating this --- maybe hack haddocl to produce something from the library docs? I assume that using package GHC uses the parent RTS (package GHC seems to be the way to go, but more investigation is required --- don?)
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| Intermixed compiled/interpreted code (for speed/hacking)
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| GUI abstraction --- want it to work on terminals as well as X
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| Views on data? Rather than just editing a file, you would open a view
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| onto the file, i.e. there is no longer a 1-1 correspondence between
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| buffers and files. Why? Well, for aggregate buffers (i.e.,
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| editing multiple files in the one view), or for multiple views of a
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| file (e.g. AST and source-level). There would be some primitive ops
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| for editing a buffer (insertChar, delete, etc.), which would then
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| call update functions on anything observing that file.
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| Remote attach so I can work from home, but still use a remote machine
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| Haddock documentation (no brainer), maybe associate with .hi files for
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| binaries.
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| A class MiniBufferRead (or PromptingRead) which allows the user to
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| invoke a function similar to M-x in Emacs, but without requiring
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| (interactive)
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| Maybe a class YiShow, which all config items must be a member of? This is to emulate describe-variable
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| == Implementation ==
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| Considerations:
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| ; Configuration
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| : Per mode/file/buffer/whatever Monads, or reload/recompile? Or some hybrid? How does this interact with the documentation aspects? Do we want to have separate sorts of symbols ala emacs (describe-function, describe-variable), or is everything a function? I would think that configuration info doesn't change that frequently --- is this globally true though? | |
| ; Interface to the runtime
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| : The scheduler, docs, etc.
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| ; Introspection of e.g. what processes are running.
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| : There are already libraries in Haskell for processes, but they don't give Yi any extra information --- we really want a layer on top. | |
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| ...
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| [[User:Sjw|Sjw]] 09:15, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
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| [[Category:Applications]]
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