Source Explorer

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Source Explorer

• Prepared by Igor Volnov
• support_at_ivdevinc.com

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About the presenter

• Over 10 years of IT consulting experience.
• Ten certifications in IT, including MCSD and
  MCSD.NET.
• Owner of Iv Dev Inc, IT consulting company, since
  1999

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Agenda

• Introduction and terminology
• The prerequisites for the technology
• The drawbacks of current tools
• What is suggested
• Comparison of new and old ways
• Conclusion about usability
• Questions

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Terminology

• Integrated Development Environment.
• Examples VS.NET, IntelliJ, Toad
• Compilation transforming from one shape to
  another
• Examples Compiling C program to machine code
• Refactoring improving code for simplicity and
  convenience.
• Very useful in case of a substantial code base.
• Examples Replacing a frequently occurring code
  piece with method
• Source Control and sharing multiple people
  working on the same project

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Problem 1 Clutter

• The content of the file is often cluttered with
  different kinds of content that you do not want
  to see. Still, there is little you can do to hide
  it.

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Problem 2 Navigation

• Jumping from passage to passage within a large
  code file is relatively hard, there is no
  convenient way to work with a few code blocks at
  the same time

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Problem 3 Syntactic Errors

• Multiple attempts have been made to reduce the
  number of human errors to minimum. Still, there
  are multiple programming environments where
  coders are not protected from syntactic errors or
  typos. In many cases, recompilation is needed to
  see the errors.

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Source Explorer demo

• C Sharp
• Java
• SQL
• XML
• PHP

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Problem 1 Clutter

• The content of the file is often cluttered with
  different kinds of content that you do not want
  to see. Still, there is little you can do to hide
  it.

Solution

• The content of the file is clearly formatted and
  structured. Unneeded parts are either hidden or
  collapsed. You can concentrate on the code block
  you are editing.

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Problem 2 Navigation

• Jumping from passage to passage within a large
  code file is relatively hard, there is no
  convenient way to work with a few code blocks at
  the same time

Solution

• Each tree node you want to access is shown in its
  own tab.

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Problem 3 Syntactic Errors

• Multiple programming environments where coders
  are not protected from syntactic errors or typos.
  In many cases, coders need to recompile to see
  the errors.

Solution

• Input is immediately parsed and verified.
  Compilation is not needed to see the errors.

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Added advantages!

• Tokenized content can be exposed to plug-ins
• Extended opportunities for auto-completion and
  code suggestions
• Extended opportunities for code source control
• Simplified reuse
• Convenient node manipulation

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What about data files?

• Used in intersystem exchange, usually
  incomprehensible by users, require lots of
  development time to make work with them easier.
  Separate GUI for each format. Examples CSV, XML,
  HTML
• Rarely have verification abilities. Can contain
  hard to track syntactic errors.

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Conclusion

• Easier Navigation
• Working with multiple blocks
• Immediate syntactic check
• Code is plug-in friendly
• Source level reuse is simplified
• Finer Source Control

Productivity