Success and failure of programming environments - report on the design and use of a graphic abstract syntax tree editor

TL;DR

This paper reports on the design and evaluation of Absynte, a graphical abstract syntax tree editor for functional programming, highlighting its effectiveness and challenges in structured syntax editing environments.

Contribution

It introduces Absynte, a novel graphical editor for abstract syntax trees, and assesses its usability and issues in functional programming environments.

Findings

Absynte improved syntax editing efficiency.

Structured syntax environments face specific usability challenges.

Effectiveness of graphical AST editors varies with user experience.

Abstract

The STAPLE project investigated (at the end of the eighties), a persistent architecture for functional programming. Work has been done in two directions: the development of a programming environment for a functional language within a persistent system and an experiment on transferring the expertise of functional prototyping into industry. This paper is a report on the first activity. The first section gives a general description of Absynte - the abstract syntax tree editor developed within the Project. Following sections make an attempt at measuring the effectiveness of such an editor and discuss the problems raised by structured syntax editing - specially environments based on abstract syntax trees.