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Comment on Mixing Visual and Textual Codeparent

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Yeah I'm not talking about that. I'm thinking more like "a C program is just a parse tree, so why couldn't a visual tool help you visualize or rearrange the parse tree?"

This academic paper assumes two largely unmixed disciplines just barely kissing each other. I see a complete blending coming that will melt the boundaries between textual and visual programming.

Once you start thinking like this, you stop seeing semantic editing as a feature of a particular language: it should just be a native ability to have on any parseable code: the ability to reassemble the parse tree nodes like lego bricks.

I entirely agree with you, and I'll raise you one -- coding via AST's lets you formally note and track the boundary/linking facts and concepts via comments. That might finally get us out of the stone-age!

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