diff options
Diffstat (limited to '2021/talks/structural.md')
| -rw-r--r-- | 2021/talks/structural.md | 124 |
1 files changed, 124 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/2021/talks/structural.md b/2021/talks/structural.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..03089a2d --- /dev/null +++ b/2021/talks/structural.md @@ -0,0 +1,124 @@ +[[!meta title="Tree-edit: Structural editing for Java, Python, C, and beyond"]] +[[!meta copyright="Copyright © 2021 Ethan Leba"]] +[[!inline pages="internal(2021/info/structural-nav)" raw="yes"]] + +<!-- You can manually edit this file to update the abstract, add links, etc. ---> + + +# Tree-edit: Structural editing for Java, Python, C, and beyond! +Ethan Leba + + + +[[!inline pages="internal(2021/info/structural-schedule)" raw="yes"]] + +[[!table header="no" class="speaker-details" data=""" +Name pronunciation | E-than LEE-ba +Pronouns | he/him +Homepage | <https://ethan-leba.github.io/> +Preferred contact info | <ethanleba5@gmail.com> +"""]] + +In this talk, I'll discuss a vision for how writing code could be, where the +editing operations map directly to the primitives of the language itself -- and +my humble attempt of implementing this vision. _tree-edit_ seeks to provides a +structural editing plugin supporting conceivably any language with a tree-sitter +parser. + +**Structural editing does not have to be relegated to lisps or niche DSLs.** + +I liken the state of code editing today to writing assembly. The reason why +people like Python more than assembly is that for most purposes, the building +blocks of the language are mismatched with our thought process. We don't think +in terms of registers and addresses, we think in terms of variables, functions, +etc. So when we write and edit code, why do we edit in terms of deleting, +inserting, replacing characters – not wrapping, inserting, raising, +deleting expressions and statements? + +I'll also discuss the implementation of tree-edit, which uses a novel +combination of the fantastic +[tree-sitter](https://github.com/emacs-tree-sitter/elisp-tree-sitter) parser +with an embedded logic programming DSL ([miniKanren](http://minikanren.org/), +using elisp port [reazon](https://github.com/nickdrozd/reazon)) to power it's +syntax tree generation. + +Check out the GitHub repo [here](https://github.com/ethan-leba/tree-edit)! + +# Discussion + +IRC nick: ethan + +- Q1: so tree-edit is orthogonal to the LSP features? + - A: only uses tree-sitter yeah +- Q2:any chance you tried this with Clojure as well? + - A: haven't tried it yet, i don't think tree-sitter-langs has a + clojure grammar AFAIK +- Q3: Would we be able to do things like extract statement to a + variable? For example, extract a a math operation happening in a + fucntion call argument into a separate variable an then replace the + funtion call arg with the variable name. +- Q4: How do tree-edit and combobulate compare? + - A: a lot of similarities, tree-edit replaces traditional text + editing style combobulate still implements +- Q5: Are similar packages for structural editing common to other + editors or they are just popular in Emacs cause of the paredit + tradition? + - A: emacs seems to be a trend-setter +- Q6: Great talk! How difficult do you imagine adding more languages + to Tree-edit will be? + - A: Trying to add python, not super simple, C-like should be drop + in replacements +- Q7: @ethan Could tree-edit be made to work with Org (orgdown!) + itself, or maybe rather what would be needed to get such a unified + tree-editing framework to work also for complex Org trees? +- Q8: Any plans for an Evil mode integration? evil-textobj-tree-sitter + seems like it has a long way to go if it's to catch up to + tree-edit. + +- any chance you tried this with Clojure as well? + - ethan: haven't tried it yet, i don't think tree-sitter-langs has a clojure grammar AFAIK + - yeah I use sogaiu's (https://github.com/sogaiu/tree-sitter-clojure) but it does not have if else and the rest, only the main data types +- so tree-edit is orthogonal to the LSP features? +- did not know that miniKanren had an elisp port +- Seems like a really cool use of logic programming. All the examples I've heard of are much simpler than this. +- Wow, voice control is a good point +- Could tree-edit be made to work with Org (orgdown!) itself, or maybe rather what would be needed to get such a unified tree-editing framework to work also for complex Org trees? +- Awesome talk. I'm definetly going to try out tree-edit later :) +- Amazing talk!! Such a cool project +- `andrea: absolutely! Also for Orgdown - which is a good start since it is much easier. +- Andrew Blinn's talk on Fructure and Ethan Leba's talk on Tree-edit are really insightful. +- Agreed about the lack of formal grammar (only a proliferation of parsers) being a limiting factor. Maybe we could bridge directly to the available commands without going through a grammar though. A unified tree-editing framework across languages but definitely including Org would be awesome (ala lispy/etc). + +Links and other notes: + +- Github repo : <https://github.com/ethan-leba/tree-edit> +- editing operations that map directly to the structure of the + language +- inspired by paredit and lispy +- Another similar project is <https://github.com/mickeynp/combobulate> + by Mickey Petersen, the writer of Mastering Emacs. +- It's an open source project so contributers are welcome +- Future implication for this kind of work could be voice controlled + code writing/editing + +# Outline + +- Discuss motivation (Why should I care?) +- Demonstrate tree-edit (Live-coding with tree-edit) +- Demonstrate tree-edit syntax tree generator (Elevator pitch on miniKanren) + +<!-- +- 20 minutes: (brief description/outline) + - discuss motivation + - discuss prior art (paredit, lispy) + - demonstrate tree-edit + - demonstrate and discuss tree-edit syntax tree generation engine + +- 40 minutes: (brief description/outline) + +same as 20 minutes, with more detailed discussion of the implementation. + +--> +[[!inline pages="internal(2021/captions/structural)" raw="yes"]] + +[[!inline pages="internal(2021/info/structural-nav)" raw="yes"]] |