Re: A History of Variables
- From: "R. Haynie" <rhaynie@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:40:51 -0400
Ah, Ok, thanks for the breakdown.
You are really getting some of our juices going with this development.
Thanks.
Andreas Stefik wrote:
> Rodney,
>
> Well does your debugger have a window that shows all of the
> current variables that are in scope? I know you mentioned the
> watch window, but I assume that is only watching variables that
> you identify.
>
>
> Yes, it has such a window. I must have mis-spoke, we actually have the
> opposite right now, it shows only those variables in scope, we do not
> have the self identified variables yet (e.g., watch window). I suppose
> our window would really be called a local variables window.
> Eventually, this window will be combined with a watch window, just
> like in NetBeans (but with history), although we haven't finished that
> yet. We want to get the history stuff in there first, as the watch
> window actually requires some extra parsing routines. It's not hard,
> but it is time consuming.
>
> That's why we're asking for ideas about history, at least. We've been
> batting around a number of designs, but haven't quite coalesced on one
> we find really hip, yet.
>
>
>
> If there is a window that shows all variables in scope, then I
> would suggest spawning from this window.
> Alex had a great suggestion on the resulting user interface from a
> keypress. That interface could be called by pressing enter on the
> variable in the list.
>
>
> Sounds good, I'll put another vote for this type of interface in place.
>
>
>
> Of course this would work only for variables that are currently in
> scope. Are there situations where you would want to see variables
> that no longer exist?
> -Rodney
>
>
>
> Yes, there are actually. Lets take what is, by far, the most trivial
> example I can think of. Suppose you had the following code in our
> language:
>
> integer a = 5
> a = 10
> a = 15
>
>
>
> You then run the debugger to the third line (a = 15), but do not
> execute it. In our variables history window, you can get at any old
> values of that value: a, which in this case would be only 5. The
> current value is 10. Similarly, if you stepped over a = 15, you could
> get 15, 10, and 5.
>
> Now, it gets much more complicated once you add in custom functions,
> scopes, objects, packages, and whatever else, but that's the very
> basic idea. And of course, all of this is designed with auditory
> feedback as the debugger executes. In this case, our debugger would
> say, as you step over, the following:
>
> a to 5
> a to 10
> a to 15
>
> Anyway, that's the idea.
>
> Stefik
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