In some sense pointing out 'text'ness of the text tools is the wrong thing to do (e.g., 'text' is something that contrasts with 'binary'). All of Excel, LabView, Scratch etc (as jamii pointed out in the other comment, as examples of structured editors), could have text file formats behind the scenes which could still be diffed, grepped etc. (unless the author made the distinction between text and ASCII/Unicode).
I think the author has made an interesting point, but I would add that "time has come" to, not abandon text tools (which I don't think has worked; I think the trend is going away from Excel to R and python+pandas, in data science etc), but have a hybrid system, where the text representation of the "view" is visible to the programmer all/most of the time.
For example:
- we either have plain text "LaTeX" editing where we edit out document/source "blindfolded", and only get to see the result when we compile and view the pdf.
- we use a WYSIWYG tool like Word (and some WYSIWYG LaTeX editors) where we stick to the view and are scared (sometimes it's impossible) to dig into the text representation
- what we need is something like a hyprid, where a "view" line, and a "text" line are interweaved, or "view" on left side, and "text" on right side. And we could edit any of the two ways, and the other should update.
I've been thinking along these line for quite a while, and if I get a change I intend to create some kind of system based on that.
Macromedia Dreamweaver had a nice split pane option where you could view both the html and rendered page at the same time. You could edit either side at will, and they both would stay in sync. Some things were much easier just dragging and dropping them into place, whereas other items it was easier tweaking text to get it to look right.
I think the author has made an interesting point, but I would add that "time has come" to, not abandon text tools (which I don't think has worked; I think the trend is going away from Excel to R and python+pandas, in data science etc), but have a hybrid system, where the text representation of the "view" is visible to the programmer all/most of the time.
For example:
- we either have plain text "LaTeX" editing where we edit out document/source "blindfolded", and only get to see the result when we compile and view the pdf.
- we use a WYSIWYG tool like Word (and some WYSIWYG LaTeX editors) where we stick to the view and are scared (sometimes it's impossible) to dig into the text representation
- what we need is something like a hyprid, where a "view" line, and a "text" line are interweaved, or "view" on left side, and "text" on right side. And we could edit any of the two ways, and the other should update.
I've been thinking along these line for quite a while, and if I get a change I intend to create some kind of system based on that.