[TeMPOraL]

GP is asking for the opposite. They're asking for code unfolding.

That is, given a "clean code like":

  auto DoTheThing(Stuff stuff) -> Result {
    const auto foo = ProcessSth(stuff);
    const auto bar = ValidateSthElse(stuff);

    return DoSth(foo, bar);
  }

The tool would inline all the function calls. That is, for each of ProcessSth(), ValidateSthElse() and DoSth(), it would automatically perform the task of "copy the function body, paste it at the call site, and massage the caller to make it work". It's sometimes called the "inline function" refactoring - the inverse of "extract function"/"extract method" refactoring.

I'd really, really want such a tool. Particularly one where the changes were transient - not modifying the source code, just overlaying it with a read-only replacement. Also interactive. My example session is:

- Take the "clean code" function that just calls a bunch of other functions. With one key combination, inline all these functions.

- In the read-only inlined overlay, mark some other function calls and inline them too.

- Rinse, repeat, until I can read the overlay top-to-bottom and understand what the code is actually doing.

[emilprogviz]

Signed up just to say that I've also really, really wanted such a tool since forever. While for example the Jetbrains IntelliJ family of editors has the automatic "inline function" refactoring, they do it by permanently modifying the source code, which is not quite what we want. Like you say, it should be transient!

So I recently made a quick&dirty interactive mock-up of how such an editor feature could look. The mockup is just a web page with javascript and html canvas, so it's easy to try here: https://emilprogviz.com/expand-calls/?inline,substitution (Not mobile friendly, best seen on desktop)

There are 2 different ways to show the inlining. You can choose between them if you click the cogwheel icon.

Then I learned that the Smalltalk editor Pharo already has a similar feature, demonstrated at https://youtu.be/baxtyeFVn3w?t=1803 I wish other editors would steal this idea. Microsoft, are you listening?

My mock-up also shows an idea to improve code folding. When folding / collapsing a large block of code, the editor could show a quick summary of the block. The summary could be similar to a function signature, with arguments and return values.

[TeMPOraL]

Thank you! I'm favoriting this comment. This is exactly what I was thinking about (+/- some polish)!

In particular, the SieveOfErastothenes() call, which I can inline, and inside the overlay, I can inline the call to MarkMultiples(), and the top-level variable name `limit` is threaded all the way down.

Please don't take that demo site down, or publish it somewhere persistent - I'd love to show it around to people as the demonstration of the tool I'm looking for.

> When folding / collapsing a large block of code, the editor could show a quick summary of the block.

I love how you did this! It hasn't even occurred to me, but now that I saw it, I want to have this too! I also like how you're trying to guess which branches in a conditional won't be taken, and diminish them visually.

EDIT: Also, welcome to HN! :).

[emilprogviz]

> Please don't take that demo site down, or publish it somewhere persistent

Feel free to spread the URL around, I plan to keep it online for the rest of my life, or until the feature is available in popular editors - whichever comes first. And if someone wants to mirror the demo elsewhere, it should be easy to do so, since it's client-side only and MIT licensed.

> Also, welcome to HN! :)

Thanks! Been lurking here in read-only mode for years, but today I finally had something to contribute.

[TeMPOraL]

I just finished binge-watching all five of your videos on better programming tools, and I must say, it just blew my mind. Thank you for making them.

I've been maintaining my own notes on the kind of tools I'd like to have, with hopes to maybe implement them one day, and your videos covered more than half of my list, while also showing tons of brilliant ideas that never occurred to me. I'm very happy to see that the pain points I identified in my programming work aren't just my imagination.

Also, on a more abstract level, I love your approach to programming dilemmas, and it's the first time I saw it articulated explicitly: when there are two strong, conflicting views, you do a pros/cons analysis on both, and try to find a new approach that captures all the benefits, while addressing all the drawbacks.

I've sent you an e-mail a while ago, let me know if it got through :). I'll be happy to provide all kinds of feedback on the ideas you described in your videos, and I'd love to bounce the remaining part of my list off you, if you're interested :).

> today I finally had something to contribute

That's a first-class contribution. I think you should post the link to your site as a HN submission, using title "Show HN: Ideas for better programming tools" ("Show HN" being a marker that you're submitting your own work).

[emilprogviz]

Wow, thanks, I'm really happy you liked my videos so much! I wonder how many of us have great tool ideas in private notes sitting on our hard drives, not really sharing them with others. I'm glad your ideas overlap with mine, because the more people have the same idea, the more likely it is to be a good one, I think.

> when there are two strong, conflicting views, you do a pros/cons analysis on both

Yeah, it's not easy... I've participated in endless, looping debates as much as anyone - I guess it's just human psychology. But with enough conscious effort, I find that it's sometimes possible to take a step back, take a fair look at both sides, and design a best-of-both-worlds solution. I'll apply this method again in future videos, and if I can inspire a few more people to use it, that's great. Making the programming world a tiny bit less "tribal" and a bit more constructive.

> I've sent you an e-mail a while ago

Yeah, let's continue our discussion over email. I replied to your email from my private address, let me know if it got through.

> That's a first-class contribution. I think you should post the link to your site as a HN submission

"First-class contribution" gave me tears of joy :) I'd like to "Show HN" in a few months. Once I post there, I might get a lot of comments, and I want to be available to answer the comments and make follow-up videos quickly, but currently my personal life is too busy.

[TeMPOraL]

> I wonder how many of us have great tool ideas in private notes sitting on our hard drives, not really sharing them with others.

From talking to others, as well as spending way too much time on HN, I think the answer is, "quite a lot". Perhaps not relative to the number of programmers, but in absolute terms, I'm pretty sure there's a hundred strong ideas to be found among just the people who comment here.

I do feel that our industry has an implicit bias against those ideas - I think it's a combination of, if you complain you get labeled as whiny, and working on speculative tooling is considered time spent not providing business value.

> let me know if it got through.

Yeah, I got it, thanks! I'm desperately trying to trim down my draft reply, because I somehow managed to write a short article when describing two of my most recent ideas :).

> I'd like to "Show HN" in a few months.

Sure, take your time :). But I think people will love what you're already have. It's not just the ideas you're presenting, but also a kind of "impression of quality" your videos give.

[vikiomega9]

Great mock up, this is pretty interesting. Food for thought!

[vikiomega9]

I'm curious to understand your use-case, would be open to explaining more?

Do you actually want to overlay the code directly into the parent method or would a tooltip (similar to hyperlink previews) work? I wondering how expanding the real estate space would help with readability and how the userflow would work.

For example, code folding made a lot more sense because the window would have those little boxes to fold unfold (which is basically similar to the act of inline and un-inline).

[TeMPOraL]

Yes, I want to overlay the code directly into the parent method, preferably with appropriate syntax highlighting and whatever other goodies the IDE/editor provides normally. It would be read-only to indicate that it's just a transient overlay, and not an actual code change.

So, if I have a code like:

  auto Foo(Bar b) {
    return b.knob();
  }

  auto Frob(Frobbable f) {
    auto q = Foo(f.thing());
    return q.quux(f.otherthing());
  }

  auto DoSth(Frobbable frobbie) {
    auto a = Frob(frobbie);
    return a.magic();
  }

Then I want to mark the last function, and automatically turn it into:

  auto DoSth(Frobbable frobbie) {
    auto foo_1 = frobbie.thing();
    auto q_1 = foo_1.knob();
    auto frob_1 = frobbie.otherthing();
    auto a = q_1.quux(frob_1);
    return a.magic(); 
  }

Or something equivalent, possibly with highlights/synthetic comments telling me which bits of code came from where. I want to be able to keep inlining function calls like this, until I hit a boundary layer like the standard library, or a third-party library. I might want to expand past that, but I don't think I'd do that much. I'd also like to be able to re-fold code I'm not interested in, to reduce noise.

What such tool would do is automating the process I'm currently doing manually - jumping around the tiny functions calling other tiny functions, in order to reassemble the actual sequence of lower-level operations.

I don't want this to be a tooltip, because I want to keep expanding past the first level, and have the overlay stay in place until I'm done with it.

EDIT: languages in the Lisp family - like Common Lisp or Emacs Lisp - feature a tool called "macroexpander". Emacs/SLIME wraps it into an interactive "macrostepper" that behaves pretty much exactly like the tool I described in this discussion thread.

EDIT2: See the excellent demo upthread by ' emilprogviz - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27306118. That's the kind of tool I had in mind.

[vikiomega9]

yes excellent mock, I see what you mean.

How would you deal with multiple levels of nesting? :) Let's say you're at level 5 which is pretty reasonable.

Oh and I also forgot about languages like Java that are heavy on interfaces and DI. That would be interesting to handle.