in search of the next code editor

What about hyperlinks?
class Hello
{
public Hello()
{
print("Hello World.");
}
}

when you've got the ctrl key held down, becomes:
class Hello
{
public Hello()
{
print("Hello World.");
}
}
When you click the link, keywords and library functions bring up help, symbols navigate to declaration or definition, as appropriate.

Note, this does not replace good tooltips, which are also requisite. The difference is that hyperlinks denote navigation, whereas tooltips bring the help to you, in context. We should have both, and there should be a back button for reversing all navigations. Some editors already have this.

2 comments:

  1. Does Eclipse do this? Everyone keeps telling me it's the best IDE since sliced bread* but I have never gotten around to giving it a whirl.

    * Sliced bread is not actually a good IDE.

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  2. Eclipse has some capability in this regard, but I think its mostly for actual URLs, not arbitrary symbols and keywords.
    ...
    Don't believe their lies. Eclipse is crap. The Workspace paradigm is awkward, their project management scheme is opaque and defeats sharing via source control, their auto-completion and intellisense is weak sauce. Their text editor is sub-standard and hard to configure.

    Sure it has lots of "features," and maybe for java developers who already use it, it's great, but I cannot recommend against it enough. No-one in charge of that project cares about friendliness, intuitiveness, or portability. The only thing it has going for it is a billion plugins, which frustrates me immensely, because the core text editing and project management is so devotedly mediocre.

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