Python not a Very High-Level Language?

[François Pinard]

lin li <linli at computer.org> writes:

> >I've tried a lot of folding editors over the years, and I've never
> >found one that was as pleasant to use as, say, Word's outline editor.

> Just an idea, how about folding on the indentation levels?  We just have
> to forget about all these other languages then.

The Python mode for Emacs could implement Python folding, ideally.  Or else,
we could adjust one of the few available folding editors in Emacs to fit the
job (I quite prefer Allout over pure Outline already, yet I did not really
study most recent improvements to Outline -- I vaguely remember these are
internal, maybe to use overlays more than text properties, so to have many
folded "views" of the same text in different windows, simultaneously).

But the first task to achieve is to list what we want.  If Word's outline
editor (which I do not know) has interesting features, let's analyse the
interest and identify the wanted features.

It is quite possible that we have a very good start already.  If Outline
may be easily installed as a minor mode over Python mode (I guess yes), it
should be a trivial task to get Emacs Outline to rely on indentation level,
just by having Python mode locally set the value of outline-regexp, or such.

We might consider what this combination offers as granted, and list missing
features from that point, so making that wish list essentially shorter.
I'm not necessarily suggesting that the implementation of the wish list
should extend the "good start" described above, another start might be
required, if we were finding that Outline mode is not flexible enough.

-- 
François Pinard   http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~pinard