[ESS] polymode, tangentially related to ESS

[Phillip Lord]

Vitalie Spinu <spinuvit at gmail.com> writes:

>  >>>  (Phillip Lord)on Thu, 13 Mar 2014 16:37:08 +0000 wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>  > The problem with indirect-buffers is that they share text-properties as
>  > well as text. And modes use text-properties to do things. In my hands,
>  > indirect-buffers in different modes end up fighting each other.
>
> Well, to some it is a problem to others it is a must have. Fontification
> is also implemented as text properties. As long as the modes "do their
> things" in their own buffers it is good enough.

Out of curiosity how do you stop this being a problem with polymode? In
my experience, if I have two indirect buffers in two different modes the
currently active one "wins" the syntax highlighting because of the text
properties.

With linked-buffers you could share some (or all, or none) of the text
properties, as you choose. By default I share text and no properties.


>  > The second problem with this approach to multi-mode editing is that
>  > *all* the tools must support the mixed syntax environment. 
>
> This is true for all multi-mode approaches out there, but much less so
> with indirect buffers.

When I say *all* the tools I mean all of them, including all the ones
not in Emacs. So the programming language and the documentation tool as
well. 


>  > Finally, I would say, it's not clear that you want the multi-mode
>  > environment all the time; if you are writing a literate programme do you
>  > want the buffer to be in two modes at once? Or do you want to have two
>  > modes you can switch between -- so that when, for instance, you are
>  > editing the documentation the code is visually less immediate and vice
>  > versa.
>
> All multi-modes that don't use indirect buffer got the latter way. They
> switch the mode, which is notoriously slow and requires dealing with
> mode by mode basis with tons of workarounds. 

Yeah, I tried that as well and you say, it's a pain.

>
>  > In this video, I do something you cannot do with indirect-buffers -- the
>  > two buffers have different text, yet you can update either.
>
>  > https://vimeo.com/88658729
>
> This is cool, but what is the use of it, concretely? What exactly do you
> try to achieve in the long run?


I've written a long post describing this, which will go live as soon as
I've kicked people to kick the webserver!

I want to do literate programming. Or perhaps more accurately programmed
literature, as I expect in many cases there will be a lot more text than
program. The tool set I want to integrate (Clojure and Latex) does not
easily allow this combination, mostly because Clojure doesn't have block
comments, nor can they be coded in at a user level. So I have two
buffers which are *views* of the same information but not exactly the
same content.

I also want to get it working with Markdown -- I get really frustrated
that I cannot run the code snippets in my documentation; they are a pain
in the ass to maintain.

It's an experiment at the moment, though. I though about the various
multi-mode options and started to wonder whether it is the idea that is
wrong, rather than the implementation. The only way you find out is by
experimenting. 

Phil