Thus Spake Gaksloope: The future of browse and code

secretGeek .:dot Nuts about dot Net:.

Thus Spake Gaksloope: The future of browse and code

My strange friend Gaksloope, who lives in an alternative-reality cubicle, fourteen minutes into the future, sent me an IM message today that i thought i'd share.

(first, recall that alternative universes only ever seem to inter-communicate via instant messaging services. And Google talk is weapon-of-choice for most trans-temporal-cross-reality chatters. But we digress.)

Here is what Gaksloope has to say:

gaks:It 'trigues me that you whine about syntax highlighting for the web, when here, in my alternative-reality cubicle, fourteen minutes into the future, we have very nice syntax highlighting features available from all of the seven popular browsers.

leon:syntax highlighting controls? i don't get it?

gaks:oh it's easy, you start typing and it highlights for you and has intellisense too

leon://show me the code//, gakza, i can sell this to some fools i know

gaks:here goes. first you drop a textarea tag into your document like this:
<textarea> </textarea>

leon:OK, np.

gaks:next you set the syntax attribute, to tell it what syntax to use:
<textarea syntax="http://www.w3c.org/syntax/microsoft/CSharp.syntax"></textarea>

leon:So what does that do?

gaks:That tells the browser what syntax we're expecting.

leon:The browser? Don't you mean the server?

gaks:The browser, the browser, man, everything interestng happens on the browser. anyway forget the server. We don't have those here -- everyone's machines act as nodes in giant peer-to-peer clusters. Client machines are more powerful than servers these days anyway. it's the "reverse 'big-fish-eats-little-fish' rule of computing." Sheesh - sometimes i think you must be //sixteen// minutes behind in your alternative reality cubicle.

leon:so the browser loads and parses that document... Csharp.syntax, before it renders the textarea tag? must be slow.

gaks:no, it axs for it.

leon:axs?

gaks:Asynchronous Xml Slurping. Tell me, for the love of god, you've got AXS?

leon:oh //that// 'AXS'. yes, even our shoe laces can do that here... um.

gaks:so the browser axs the syntax file. notice that i ax'd it from w3c.org, rather than the more popular one located at Apple.com.

leon:apple?

gaks:since Apple.com bought microsoft.org they own the spec to c-sharp as well.

leon:dot org? did you say microsoft.org? HA!

gaks:typo sorry. microsoft.borg. they got their own top level domain, right before steve ballmer went insane and crushed bill gates to death in his giant grip, then ate him.

leon:that happened in your reality?

gaks:oh, that happens in every reality. it's one of the five universal constants. you mustn't have reached that bit yet.

leon:i'll.. i'll look out for it.

gaks:so anyway, the syntax file tells the browser that the language has certain symbols for comments, certain keywords, operators and the like. this is all simple stuff that has been well understood in every reality for a long time. And it's the next attribute that tells the browser how to style each of these particles; what colors and fonts and so on. This is the 'highlight' attribute:

<textarea syntax="http://www.w3c.org/syntax/microsoft/CSharp.syntax"
    highlight="http://www.csszengarden/styles/highlights/DancingSea.css" >
</textarea>

leon:and that's it? syntax highlighting in the browser?

gaks:oh it doesn't stop there. there's intellisense as well -- just specify the dictionary of possibilities:

<textarea syntax="http://www.w3c.org/syntax/microsoft/CSharp.syntax"
    highlight="http://www.csszengarden/styles/highlights/DancingCfamily.css"
    intellisense="http://www.apple.com/microsoft/csharp.terms" >
</textarea>

gaks:one more trick -- we let the user expand the intellisense possbilities with their own, local, list of terms.

<textarea syntax="http://www.w3c.org/syntax/microsoft/CSharp.syntax"
    highlight="http://www.csszengarden/styles/highlights/DancingCfamily.css"
    intellisense="http://www.apple.com/microsoft/csharp.terms"
    clientIntellisense="csharp.terms" >
</textarea>

gaks:It works like a Custom Dicionary in Apple Word.

leon:abra cadabra

** gaks may not reply because his/her status has changed to 'no available ripple in trans-reality fibril or offline' **

Ah... there you have it. Maybe i'll share again, next time i hear from Gaksloope. Best of luck.

'nate' on Fri, 26 Aug 2005 03:06:19 GMT, sez:

Very enlightening (read funny). I look forward to future encounters with Gaksloope.

> i can sell this to some fools i know
At the risk of turning space-time itself on it's head as a result of cross-polinating code between alternate realities? I wish I was that brave.

'secretGeek' on Mon, 29 Aug 2005 00:10:30 GMT, sez:

>risk of turning space-time itself on it's head as a result of cross-polinating code between alternate realities ??

sure -- where do you think the first version of linux came from? some kid's bedroom? yeh right.

'Andrew R' on Mon, 29 Aug 2005 09:06:56 GMT, sez:

It has just dawned on me ..... secretGeek --> the modern superman !!

PS. what does Mrs secretGeek think of your imaginary friends?

'secretGeek' on Mon, 29 Aug 2005 22:08:15 GMT, sez:

>the modern superman
you got that right. but instead of x-ray vision i've got tired eyes from squinting at a monitor.

>what does Mrs secretGeek think of your imaginary friends?

Who says Mrs secretGeek isn't imaginary? Sure you've met her once... or did you just imagine it?

'The coninuing adventures of Gaksloope' on Fri, 23 Sep 2005 00:07:42 GMT, sez:

Surgery via AJAX... Gaksloope speaks out.

Add your comment.

name

website (optional)

enter the word:

comment (HTML not allowed)

All viewpoints welcome. But the right to delete any post for any reason is reserved. Don't make me do it. Aim for constructiveness. Comments may be republished, emailed to your loved ones or printed and used as toilet paper. Also, I get particularly nasty on comment spam. It's not worth even trying to post comment spam here -- your html is escaped, and your links are given a rel='nofollow'. By attempting to post a comment, you understand that if the comment is considered spam, at my absolute discretion, your IP address may be used as the target of a prolonged distributed denial of service attack. Your electricity might suddenly stop working. Your car tyres will go mysteriously flat. You will suffer permanent hairloss. Your dreams will be filled with terrifying monsters. And in any case I reserve the right to record and publish your IP address.

TimeSnapper_{Know thyself!}

TimeSnapper is a life analysis system that stores and plays-back your computer use. It makes timesheet recording a breeze, helps you recover lost work and shows you how to sharpen your act.

NimbleText - FREE text manipulation and data extraction

NimbleText is a Powerful FREE Tool

Use it for:

extracting data from text
manipulating text
generating code

It makes you look awesome. Use it right now! Go on! Hurry! Don't walk, run!

Articles

Mind-boggling Demo of New Gaming Genre, aka Folder-Based Hangman, aka Fun with Recursion

Got CSV in your javascript? Use agnes.

I went to write down a book name and founded an internet empire instead.

NimbleText: Origins

The Windows 8 Mullet

Cosby: spontaneous striped background generator

Slides from WDCNZ: Live Coding Asp.net MVC3
MVC 3,

MVC 3, "Third Times a Charm" references

Custom Errors in ASP.Net MVC: It couldn't be simpler, right?

Anatomy of a Domain Hijacking, part 2: The Website Who Came In From The Cold

Anatomy of a Domain Hijacking, part 1

secretGeek.net domain has been stolen. The site may go down.

Boring article: 'untrusted domain' issue with SQL Server.

Coding While You Commute

Test Driven Dentistry Is A Good Thing

The 'less crashy' release of NimbleText

Rethinking Toolbars in Visual Studio (or any IDE)

Where shall we have lunch?

Setting up email for your microIsv

The NO Visual Studio movement: Compiling .net projects in Notepad++

ZeroOne: the editor for programmers who think in binary

Mercurial workflow for personal projects (with a .net bias)

I see you're using vim. Let me fix that for you.

The worst recruitment spam I've ever read

A thank you I forgot to say

My new product, NimbleText, is live

Grabbing the free songs of Jonathan Coulton (with Powershell)

Using NimbleSet to compare lists

Wanted: Wiki Lists (dot org)

DOS on Dope: The last MVC web framework you'll ever need

JSON Query Languages: 5 special purpose editors

What then, is b?

SQLike: A simple editor

Yet Another BizPlan Generator.

HOT GUIDS: A hot or not site for guids

How does life get better? One tiny hack at a time.

24 things to do, and 100 things *not* to do (yet) for building a MicroISV

Venture capital won't kill Jeff Atwood, it will only make him Jeffer.

A handy workflow image for newbie mercurial users

Fractal Feedback, a diversion into recreational programming

Hump-Jumping: How the Education of Computer Science can be Saved, err, maybe.

Suggested User Experience Improvements for DiffMerge

SQL Style Extensions for C#

The Movie Hollywood (And My Wife) Doesn't Want You To See: Weekend at Jacko's

Sysi: the ultimate administrators toolkit

.: secretGeek :: Complete Archives
TimeSnapper -- Automated Screenshot Journal

TimeSnapper.com
^{Version 3.3: true productivity boost}
Next Action

NextAction
^{Managing the top of your mind}

NimbleText -- World's Simplest Code Generator, Text Manipulator, Data Extractor

25 steps for building a Micro-ISV
3 minute guides -- babysteps in new technologies: powershell, JSON, watir, F#

3 Minute Guide Series

Universal Troubleshooting Checklist

Top 10 SecretGeek articles
ShinyPower (help with Powershell)

ShinyPower
^{Now at CodePlex}
Realtime CSS Editor, in a browser

RealTime Online CSS Editor
Gradient Maker -- a tool for making background images that blend from one colour to another. Forget photoshop, this is the bomb.

Gradient Maker

Thus Spake Gaksloope: The future of browse and code

NimbleText is a Powerful FREE Tool

Articles

Twitter, baby

Recommended Reading

Recommended blogs

Aggregated Links

Human Link Machines