Is there a good modern example of a structured editor? My main worry about structured editing is that a naive implementation raises the floor but lowers the ceiling, in the sense that I'd be slower in a structured editor than in a regular editor with a language I know well. I'm especially interested in examples that disprove that (I believe it's possible, I just think it would take someone smarter than me to do it :))

Good people to ask: @andrew blinn @Cyrus Omar

The "gotcha" with structured editing is that the minute you propose a graphical interface for data structures, code, screen layouts, etc., you being a project that is a large amount of work, and at 50% complete the system is fairly worthless. The simplicity of text is that a very rudimentary editor gives you a complete system. In the graphical space, you will inevitably need to offer color pickers, gradient designers, layout tools, schema designers, etc., all of which add up. No question it can be done. MPS is bewildering IMHO.

one approach i'm taking is not going full structured editor. The program is still stored in text form and editing happens in text form and the editor is on a constant loop of: parse AST -> if successful, update stored structure -> update view widgets on save -> persist both textual and structural data

@ikrima Structure-assisted editing? I am trying to coin a term for it so that I can advocate it better. I have never seen a structure editor that doesn’t feel like a straight jacket.

@ikrima that sounds interesting, but I'm having trouble visualizing what that would look like. Do you have a public demo or screenshots?

We can be more specific than “lowers the ceiling.” Viscosity is one of the main barriers to structured editors.

@Paul Butler This thread might be of interest: https://twitter.com/jonathoda/status/1247230788434886657