Improving the way we write code?

Question

While thinking about software-engineering in general I came across the question why we don't see any improvements in the way we write/document code.

Think about it: There has not been a revolutionary improvement since we've moved from punch cards to text editing. The last improvement I've seen is syntax highlighting and context sensitive help (e.g. Intellisense or ctags). Not something I would call revolutionary.

That makes me wonder: Why is it so?

I'll start with something I miss badly:

• Lots of my code deals with geometry. For documentation describing geometric relationships always ends up in a big heap of hard to read mathematical stuff (due to the lack of proper equation type-setting in ASCII). However, if I could embed a little drawing or scribble into the code everything would be much easier, neater and better to be understood.

What can you think up that would make your coding/text editing/documention tasks easier?

Answer 1

A brain-to-computer translator. Typing is the real bottleneck. It really just needs to derive the algorithms I think up and convert that to machine code.

I would say a lot of the newer languages are pretty great at quickly creating algorithms. The improvements aren't so much revolutionary now as they are evolutionary.

Answer 2

I would reference a drawing as a reference in the code documentation. I see no reason why you can't have footnotes in code.

Answer 3

Have you used Doxygen or similar for documenting your code? You can add links to images, and other file types (often stored in same directory as source code) that will get sucked into the generated documentation. I realize that this is one step removed from seeing the detail directly in you favorite editor but it definitely improves how we document our code.

Answer 4

I think this is where Doxygen and other documentation systems help. If we can embed small, discrete comments that link to other information such as:

/* help: fooimg.png */

And then have an external documentation system do that, then great.

Even better would be allowing our text-editor to treat those things as hyperlinks to external documentation.

Answer 5

DrScheme let's you do these things. Here's the things you can insert from the PLT website:

http://docs.plt-scheme.org/drscheme/Menus.html#(part._.Insert)

3.1.6 Insert

• Insert Comment Box : Inserts a box that is ignored by DrScheme; use it to write comments for people who read your program.
• Insert Image... : Opens a find-file dialog for selecting an image file in GIF, BMP, XBM, XPM, PNG, or JPG format. The image is treated as a value.
• Insert Fraction... : Opens a dialog for a mixed-notation fraction, and inserts the given fraction into the current editor.
• Insert Large Letters... : Opens a dialog for a line of text, and inserts a large version of the text (using semicolons and spaces).
• Insert λ : Inserts the symbol λ (as a Unicode character) into the program. The λ symbol is normally bound the same as lambda.
• Insert Java Comment Box : Inserts a box that is ignored by DrScheme. Unlike the Insert Comment Box menu item, this is designed for the ProfessorJ language levels. See ProfessorJ.
• Insert Java Interactions Box : Inserts a box that will allows Java expressions and statements within Scheme programs. The result of the box is a Scheme value corresponding to the result(s) of the Java expressions. At this time, Scheme values cannot enter the box. The box will accept one Java statement or expression per line.
• Insert XML Box : Inserts an XML; see XML Boxes and Scheme Boxes for more information.
• Insert Scheme Box : Inserts a box to contain Scheme code, typically used inside an XML box; see XML Boxes and Scheme Boxes.
• Insert Scheme Splice Box : Inserts a box to contain Scheme code, typically used inside an XML box; see also XML Boxes and Scheme Boxes.
• Insert Pict Box : Creates a box for generating a Slideshow picture. Inside the pict box, insert and arrange Scheme boxes that produce picture values.

You also insert your unit tests with the code that you're testing. Pretty neat stuff.

Answer 6

I disagree. We do have changes, small, but changes.

How common is the "for each" construct? Compare it to 20 years ago. How about the Domain Specific Languages movement? The idea that we should code in layers. How about Behavior Driven Development? Coding by complying to a specification... which writes a nice document as output when all runs fine. How about the standarization of regular expressions? PCRE.

Documentation is a two way dialog. Both as code being more understandable and people learning this special language. You wouldn't say that German needs documentation if you know German. I know natural languages are very far away from computer languages, but there's a movement to make code more expressive. It's not about the new tools, it's about how we are coding.

Answer 7

There has not been a revolutionary improvement since we've moved from punch cards to text editing

Never used a line editor, have you?

---

But seriously, text (especially in the representations chosen for modern languages) is

1. easily processed
2. fairly easy to specify
3. information dense
4. precise

Anything that comes along to replace it has to be a net win across all four of those properties. Not easy.

Answer 8

The ability to make a section of code read-only is something I've wanted

Answer 9

Source Code In Database. In a nutshell, source code is parsed and put into a database. You'd then need an integrated IDE to view and edit the code, but at this point, syntax is decoupled from format. YOUR IDE could show you a program in a way that's completely different from someone else's, tuned to the task you're working on. I'd list some specific examples, but that article covers pretty much everything.

Answer 10

Programming languages are a specialized form of mathematical notation, since you can express a programming language mathematically. Notation changes slowly, and so we don't get fast progress in our languages. Mostly, we advance when we come up with a new thing to fit into the notation, like using i to refer to the square root of negative one.

There are documentation schemes that allow you to embed things other than text. There was at least one programming scheme, Donald Knuth's Web, that allowed you to have a presentation and an execution version of a program (unfortunately, the base source code, the stuff you'd actually hack, was rather messy).

You could easily have a text editor that could treat comments as HTML, provided of course it could recognize comments as it saw them.

Answer 11

I think integrated IDEs with semantic highlighting and *semantically-constrained suggestions (a la IDEA or Eclipse) are a huge advancement.

But that happened 8-10 years ago.

Template-based programming feels useful never seems to catch on. Recently I was impressed with a demo of the Meta-programming system, which leverages the interactive nature of the IDE to simplify the task of writing templates and what are (essentially) type-aware macros.

Meta-programming might help you define geometry-based macros that would substitute for a number of lines of code. I could imagine something that let you embed a more-readable 'math language' inside Java, and then parses its contents into something machine-readable.

Answer 12

It sounds like you might be interested in Jonathan Edward's research. See, for example:

• "The Summer of Code"
• "What's next?"
• "The future of programming"

Answer 13

The last improvement I've seen is syntax highlighting and context sensitive help

Then you haven't looked much. Modern IDEs can do far, FAR more than that, namely show you the semantic structure of code (e.g. inheritance hierarchies) and even manipulate it (automatic refactoring) or enrich it with external data (such as who last changed a particular line of code).

Answer 14

I'm suprised that no one seems to have mentioned Donald Knuth's seminal Literate Programming - write your code as if it were a book or a scientific paper.

Answer 15

I've been thinking a lot about how to make coding faster and more efficient for the past years, always trying to keep it realistic and doing minimalistic implementations. Those are not revolutionary ideas, but since the original poster talked about the punching card to code typing transition, I thought of talking about other ways of communicating to the computer what we want to program.

My ideas are visual or vocal programming. The motivation behind is that there are only a number of ways a loop can be efficiently programmed, and an aware IDE could make some smart code substitution decisions depending on inputs other than typed lines of code.

Visual programming vs Coding: encapsulate (literally) code into "boxes" which have inputs and outputs, and connect them together across a horizontal timeline. This is a high-level concept that would be intrinsically interesting for multithreading development since you can have multiple lines or threads happening at the same time. Every process can be divided into a "box", no matter how you see it. Sending an e-mail in its most basic form is a box which takes an email as input and outputs a success/fail signal. Since the boxes and the lines are distributed across a timeline, the notion of time and event chronology isn't lost and feedback lines are possible.

Vocal programming vs Coding: The effectiveness of this technique would revolve around the effectiveness of the vocal syntax decided to create code and move the cursor. For example, you can say to the microphone "for variable zero to 10" and the system will automatically generate the following code placing the cursor inside:

for (x=0;x<10;x++){
  // Cursor would be there after after the call
}

In terms of usability, you would need to be in a relatively silent room to minimize other sounds that might harm the voice recognition so this technology could be used in specialized environments mostly.

This is the result of my extensive programming experience using a wide range of hardware and programming languages. Let me know what you guys think, I'd love having a constructive discussion about that.

Answer 16

The basic flaw in the whole process is the concept of putting source code into a text file in order to be able to compile it.

It is put into a text file, because the that is the sort of input that the compiler demands. This is a 50 year old idea that ought to be rethought.

The compiler/linker ought to be integrated with an IDE, to free the programmer from worrying about what code goes in what module, and what do I have to do to make this code visible over there. Globals? Externs? #include files, Library Paths... toss them out the window.

One ought to be able to open an IDE, and see a list of projects. You open one of them up. If you are a designer, you see design documentation. If you are a developer, you see the code. If you are a user, you see the wiki.

The design documentation is hyperlinked to the code, and the code back to the doc, and back to the users guide, so you can get to any level you need. So you are in some function, and you wonder "Why on earth did they do it that way?" You follow the link to the design specification to see why. You follow from there to the requirements document. You follow that to the name of the person who suggested it as a requirement.

All the file management go. It is left to the internals of the IDE.

Answer 17

Dare I say it might actually be a new development language (perhaps even a new paradigm) to take us through such revolution;

Answer 18

One thing I've done recently in some of the more math-heavy sections of my application is to include the LaTeX markup for the particular equation as a comment/docstring. Right now, I just copy-paste into an online equation editor, but it would be very helpful to see the formula itself (with things like Greek letters and sub/superscripts) rather than a bunch of ASCII code.

Answer 19

I'm surprised that nobody has yet mentioned No Silver Bullet. In 1986 (!), Frederick Brooks predicted that:

There is no single development, in either technology or management technique, which by itself promises even one order-of-magnitude [tenfold] improvement within a decade in productivity, in reliability, in simplicity. [...] We cannot expect ever to see two-fold gains every two years."

And in 23 years, he's been proven right. We've come up with a number of things such as syntax highlighting and Intellisense which have improved productivity significantly, but certainly not by an order of magnitude. As time marches on, we'll continue to make several incremental improvements, but the fact is there is no silver bullet: there's not going to be some magical revelation in the way we write code that will improve productivity by an order of magnitude.

Answer 20

A few weeks back the "Intentional Software" created quite a buzz about their new language. I've yet to watch the presentation, but here is a quote from a review by Martin Fowler:

They started worryingly, with the usual unrevealing Powerpoints, but then they switched to showing the workbench and the curtain finally opened. To gauge the reaction, take a look at Twitter.

• @pandemonial Quite impressed! This is sweet! Multiple domains, multiple langs, no question is going unanswered
• @csells OK, watching a live electrical circuit rendered and working in a C# file is pretty damn cool.
• @jolson Two words to say about the Electronics demo for Intentional Software: HOLY CRAPOLA. That's it, my brain has finally exploded.
• @gblock This is not about snazzy demos, this is about completely changing the world we know it.
• @twleung ok, the intellisense for the actuarial formulas is just awesome
• @lobrien This is like seeing a 100-mpg carburetor : OMG someone is going to buy this and put it in a vault!

Answer 21

Diffing and searching pictures is hard. Diff and search are very important to programmers. Using pictures instead of text is only a marginal improvement in many situations, it has some drawbacks, and it requires general acceptance before it's really worth doing (since you don't make things more understandable if your reader doesn't grok what you've done).

Plus, programmers have a million little tricks that make their lives easier, based on text representations of code, that they'd lose if you gave them code to read that was expressed in anything other than text. Sure, they might replace or re-implement those tricks over time, but in the short term they're gone.

You don't see lawyers switching from English to little back-of-a-napkin diagrams in contracts, either (the Creative Commons licenses try, but cannot make the picture be the formal representation of the contract). Probably for similar reasons.

If someone comes up with a programming language and IDE that, on balance, beats text-based ones; and successfully markets it; then you'll see the start of a revolutionary shift from text to a new format. If nobody comes up with any such thing, then we're not missing out. If someone comes up with something that is more productive but it doesn't gain traction because of independent advantages of other technologies, then that loss is the price we pay for free-market capitalism. Perhaps the ideas will be recycled eventually...

That said, integration between code and documentation could clearly be improved, and there are many efforts underway to do so, using various techniques with varying success. Again, the problem is that any particular cunning plan can in practice only really be implemented in one or a few languages and development environments at a time, and so has difficulty proving that it really is better. Embedding documentation in code is possibly the only universal advance since the invention of the API...

I think there's still a lot that can be done with text, though. For example, debugger technology makes a big difference to programmer productivity in certain common circumstances (namely: when a test fails or something else unexpected happens, but it's not obvious what the faulty assumption is in the code you're looking at). There may be lower-hanging fruit in terms of making programming better, than the actual business of expressing the program.

Answer 22

I think you might want to take a look at Leo. This is one guys attempt at answering what you're asking about. I still can't wrap my VIM head around it personally, but others take to it quickly. It's not just a programming IDE, but more of an information organizer. It's written in Python, but I don't see why you can't code in other languages with it. The power of Leo is not so much the language, but the ability to express your thoughts and organize them whether it be in code, diagrams, images, or diagrams. Look over the tutorial and examples to get a feel for it. You might like it.

Answer 23

Automated semantic source code transformations, where a program can be reliably examined and manipulated by using an abstract interface/frontend to it that is aware of the underlying semantics.

So that source code can be queried and dealt with pretty much like a SQL database.

Allowing you to do static analysis of source code and refactor even complex source code by doing something along the lines of:

FIND CALLERS OF FUNCTION "foo" WHERE SIGNATURE("int","int","char*") AND RETURN_TYPE("bool");
...
RENAME MACRO "max" TO "maximum" IN FILE "macros.hxx";
RENAME NAMESPACE "prj" TO "project";
RENAME SYMBOL "OLDFOO" IN NAMESPACE "project";
RENAME FUNCTION "log" TO "show_log";
RENAME CLASS "FOO" TO "OLDFOO";
RENAME METHOD "FOO::inc" TO "FOO::increment"; 
...
CHANGE SIGNATURE IN FUNCTION "foo" WHERE SIGNATURE("int","int") TO SIGNATURE("double","double");
CHANGE SIGNATURE IN METHOD "myClass::handle" WHERE SIGNATURE("char") TO SIGNATURE("unsigned char")
MOVE FUNCTION "foo" in FILE "stuff.cc" TO "foo_funcs.cc";

Answer 24

I'm surprised nobody mentioned it - javadoc is basically HTML, so there's nothing preventing you from embedding images (or anything else) in code. Simple, effective and ubiquitous, it's one of the things Java did right.

Answer 25

I'd say version control was a pretty huge leap in how we work. The ability to keep a full record of every change anyone has made to the codebase, and to revert changes where necessary, has made a big difference.

Answer 26

Two quotes come instantly to mind:

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." "Use the best tool for the job."

Of course, although the core code is still written as text, alll the tools and libraries have changed massively since the days of punched cards.

Answer 27

This has been touched on by others, and it wouldn't revolutionise programming, but anyway...

I think it would be nice if code editors moved slightly beyond plain text editors. Even with syntax highlighting and code completion (which I think are incredibly good things), the editors of today (at least, the ones I use) still display exactly the same ASCII text (or whatever encoding is used) that is in the source files. I would be interested to see how well it would work if editors displayed, for example (some examples are more adventurous than others):

• Comments in a text box with a light-blue background and no // or /* ... */ visible
• Javadoc comments could have semi-rich text editing support (for those who do HTML Javadoc comments) (seriously, I would appreciate it if code editors rendered Javadoc comments as HTML because they're not the easiest to skim over when their HTML as plain text)
• Functions in text boxes that could be collapsed to show only the signature (the collapsing can be done by current editors) and can be dragged around as boxes
• Lines between function boxes to indicate how functions are connected
• Zooming out so that rather than seeing a single source file (class in many languages) you can see multiple files and the way connect to each other (this would essentially be building UML-like diagramming directly into the code editor)

I think this (in my mind at least) would work without requiring additional markup in the source files so users of plain text editors wouldn't be disadvantaged by having all this extra markup cluttering the files.

Answer 28

Part of the problem might stem from the fact that when you don't code we don't call it programming: Assembling modular components using a GUI for instance.

Answer 29

I certainly respect Fred Brooks' argument No Silver Bullet, but I think the way we write code is nowhere near optimal, so there is lots more room for improvement. I tried to explain this in my book.

We're all familiar with "code golf", where you compete relentlessly to minimize something. That is a good way to approach the minimum possible value of that something.

What's great about this is that you are allowed, even encouraged, to break from traditions, prior conceptions, accepted wisdom, in the quest for winning. In short, you learn new things.

If the measure to be minimized is wall-clock execution time, you can do aggressive optimization.

If the measure is source code size (lines or characters) you get "code golf".

The measure I like best is "edit count". That is, given a code base, suppose a new requirement comes along. That requirement is implemented, completely, by editing the code base. Then a "diff" is done from old to new code base. The number of differences found is the edit count. Averaged over the set of likely new functional requirements, that is the measure to minimize.

If this is done aggressively, being free to contradict all conventional wisdom, the code base approaches a state I would call a domain-specific language (DSL). In this language, concepts expressed in code are in nearly 1-1 correspondence with problem-oriented concepts. In this state, it is not easy for the source code to be self-inconsistent (i.e. have bugs) because the fewer edits that have to be made to the source code, the fewer chances there are to make a mistake. It's also the case that such code tends to be short. But unlike "code golf" it tends to be very clear, because it maps the problem concepts so clearly.

So, tools and techniques that help in minimizing edit count can, in my opinion, be considered "silver bullets". DSL is one such. Code generation is another. My favorite optimization technique is another. For coding dynamically changing UIs there is differential execution. There are bound to be more, waiting to be discovered. Of course, everything depends on the training and experience of the "marksman" (the coder).

I think there are lots of new ideas to be discovered. The trick is to tell the difference between the ones that move us forward, versus the ones that hold us back.

Answer 30

You might be interested in these alternative programming "languages".

[Ladder][1], designed to mimic the way relay-logic-schemes work. Horrible IMO, but easy to understand for the old guys who did logic with sticks and stones. [http://www.amci.com/tutorials/images/ladder-diagram.gif][2]

[SFC, Sequential function chart][3], designed to simplify parallell programming. Code is written into boxes and these boxes can be placed paralell to each other and will thus execute simultaneously. By connecting the end of several boxes you can syncronize events. Very common for automation applications.

[Mathematica][5]!!!, Might not be the best programming language but the syntax highlighting(if you can call it that) is awesome! For example you can input a matrix by seeing the matrix nicly aligned instead of a huge double[][]. Graphs can be inserted in the code and the formatting of mathematical expressions looks like it does when you write on a paper. No more paranthesis-madness or long Math.PI expressions that really only need one character. And best of all, the files are just plain text even if it is rendered nicely in the editor!

Debuggers is also an area where lots of improvement has been done. Debuggers with replay are starting to come and also visual debuggers where data can be modified in real time. Edit and continiue is also a feature i wouldn't want to live withot.

WTF "new users can only post a maximum of one hyperlink", you will have to google the stuff i originally added to this post >:(

Answer 31

If something were to come out, nobody would use it anyway. I could save a lot of typing by using a GUI query build, but like everyone else, I want the control because I know queries can get more complicated than the typical GUI tool can handle.

Anyone dropping data controls on your forms/web pages? For the high-end user, you are correct, but there are millions of non-programmers whose ability to create software has increased exponentially over the last 20 years.

It all ends up as 1's and 0's so what do you expect.

Answer 32

Subtext. Edwards' ideas and papers are highly motivating. You have to see for yourself what's this all about:

Explanatory video

Answer 33

I've used emacs, I like text macros. But, what I really want is parse macros. I'd like my editor to expose the machinery behind refactoring in such a way that I can write my transformations on the parse tree of the language itself.

For example, Python added += at one point when my code was littered with x = x + 1 lines. If I could have written a search and replace command that worked on the parse tree, I could have quickly cleaned up large amounts of my source code.

So, I want standard search and replace, but I want it at the level where the structure of my code has meaning, at the abstract syntax tree.

If you've ever used ReSharper, each of its refactorings and recommendations are written in the manner I describe, they find a pattern in the parse tree and suggest a replacement, or for a refactoring, apply a known replacement. I want access to that machinery for my own tasks!

Answer 34

Well, look at Medicine and Civil Engineering. These are interesting because people get hurt if not done well. These field have standards and licencing-procedures EVERYONE follows. You cannot wake up one day and begin to work in these field without going through painful rituals (school, licence, apprenticeship and other tasks.) Malpractice is not treated lightly. They do not talk about: "why don't we have good written-down practices"; they have them and everyone follows them at risk of banishment.

Now, lets talk about Software. You question has been the basis of books. Yet, where are the best-practice? Robert Martin coughed up one and Joel Spolsky ridiculed him to the point of insult and assualt. At least Martin tried to bring up some standards. Any Tom, Dick, Harry, Sally and Sue can start practicing Software development. If you do rubish, just leave your company (or get fired) and do rubish somewhere else. No one will rebuke you. Licence? IEEE tried it and who cares? Texas, USA tried it and who cares? Talk about certification and your work will be trashed (like one of Steve McConnel book- Software Professionalism.)

This was a tirade; but I went through it to tell you the state of things. Software just need time to mature and failures to get the government involved and big ad powerfuls heads to roll because it mature like Civil Engineering. I doubt if that will be anytime soon; but it should be in the far future.