Re: general issues

[Jeff Kingston]

Although Lout is a batch system it was not conceived in opposition
to interactive systems.  In fact, I made Lout a purely functional
language (OK, a couple of things were not purely functional, but
most of it is) out of a conviction that this would make it easier
to use Lout behind an interactive system when the time came; so I was
anticipating an interactive version way back in 1985.

The way forward now is to combine the ease of use of interactive
systems with the structural integrity of batch systems.  I have
a research project called Nonpareil which hopes to do this.
Unfortunately, due to lack of time I've done very little more
than make up the name so far.

Nonpareil will be a strong statically typed object-oriented
functional language.  A document will be viewed as one
enormous object creation expression.  The editor will work
by allowing the user to edit this expression by working on
its laid-out version.

I think advocates of batch systems sometimes don't want to
admit that interactive systems have real advantages, at
least in principle.  There are times when you want to lay
things out so as to please the eye but not follow any
formal rule (e.g. graphs), and interactive is the way to
go then.  Also, interactive systems are not subject to
the syntax errors that inevitably bedevil batch systems
like Lout (missing braces, etc.).  The document is checked
for correctness continuously as it is developed.

This has less to do with the mouse than is often supposed.
The text editor vi is an interactive system which does not
require the mouse at all.  An experienced user can be more
productive in vi than in a mouse-using editor, owing to
the time saved not moving the hand over to the mouse.  A
good interactive document editing system should therefore
offer its users the option of editing without the mouse.

Jeff (in manifesto mode)