[throwaway290]

Writing programs by manipulating text is the actual limitation of the technology here, alignment is just a minor detail by comparison.

[throw827474737]

That's often heard, but what's the alternative? So far every other alternative has been more limiting, not?

[eru]

There are some sane alternatives.

You can keep to mostly text, but give the editor more leeway in how to lay it out and make the code's structure more visible.

Some really simple options, that you might not even recognise as going beyond text: folding of block and go-to-definition.

[throwaway290]

AST, GUI... The technology is not there yet.