Re: [e4-dev] RFC: IDE GUI, alternative development workflow

[Eric Moffatt <emoffatt@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Anton, it's just been pointed out that
I may have misunderstood your intent...I had thought that you were talking
about changing how we develop e4.

If however you were talking about developing
this new capability under e4's incubator then this is indeed interesting
and fits well within the incubator's mandate to provide an area to explore
new technologies applicable to eclipse. If so we'd be more than happy to
work with you to set up an incubation project and get you commit rights.

Let me know if this was your intent
and we can set you up.

Eric

From:	Anton Stoychev <antitoxic@xxxxxxxxx>
To:	E4 Project developer mailing list <e4-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date:	02/15/2011 02:40 AM
Subject:	Re: [e4-dev] RFC: IDE GUI, alternative development workflow
Sent by:	e4-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx

---

Eric, I read about it (still am). I can't figure out:
is it only for
Java? Yes I want something like this but to be portable (web-based)
and not language specific. Not only to do DB logic or MVC logic or
simple function level logic (as Microsoft Robotics VPL
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb483088.aspx
) but all of it.

Boris, it does not discourage me. I've recieved a lot of negative
feedback but I'm also talking to people like Jonathan Edwards from MIT
who is developing Subtext (http://www.subtextual.org/)
The problem of
complex wiring (the case where wires are everywhere and you can't
clearly follow it) is that there is no context and there's a lot
visible at one time which makes an untidy workspace. A mapping of
relevant tasks can help the computer to hide irrelevant things when
you are at certain point.

Also this interface is not close to final. I guess that if a designer
(not software engineer) works on this problem eventually there will be
a good solution. All the ergonomics and HCI point that visual work
environment is the best scenario.

By GitHub do you mean my own repository or to become contributor to a
specific eclipse related account?

All the best,
Anton Stoychev,
Internet Engineer



On 14 February 2011 21:52, Boris Bokowski <Boris_Bokowski@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
> Hi Anton,
>
> Thank you for your email, I appreciate the effort you put into it.
I hope
> you don't mind when I respond in a very frank way. Don't let my feedback
> discourage you, if you don't like it feel free to file it under "an
old
> smalltalk dude's irrelevant opinion".
>
>> Main benefits of this approach are:
>> - you are not writing code
>
> Here in our office in Ottawa, a common saying is "Just write
the code!" [1].
> What we mean by this is that you are kidding yourself if you think
you can
> avoid writing "the code" by introducing one more layer of
abstraction, or
> going meta. In the end, to have the computer do what you want it to
do, "the
> code" has to be there in some form. So if you add abstractions
or
> indirections, these will be there in addition to "the code".
In many cases,
> just writing "the code", and not more, results in the simplest
solution.
> Easy to write, easy to understand, and easy to change.
>
>> Main developer interaction is by dragging and dropping which can
>> create links/wires (see http://neyric.github.com/wireit/
for
>> reference). The screen real estate (the workspace) is managed
by
>> panning and similar approach as Code bubbles
>> (http://www.cs.brown.edu/people/acb/codebubbles_site.htm).
Method and
>> function parameters become slots where you can drop data.
>
> These are interesting approaches. However, I am highly skeptical,
because
> from my experience, 2D wiring of components often results in configurations
> that are hard to grasp visually even though they could be expressed
> succinctly in textual form.
>
> Rather than targeting the e4 project, have you thought about creating
a new
> project on http://eclipselabs.org
or on GitHub? To "sell" your idea to the
> existing e4 committers, it might be useful to be able to point to
something
> that is in a demoable state.
>
> Good luck!
> Boris
>
> [1] I've first heard this from Steve Northover, but I am not sure
if the
> quote is his own.
> _______________________________________________
> e4-dev mailing list
> e4-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
> https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/e4-dev
>
>
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