Crosscut

I can think of two approaches for editing a structured code database. I'm not sure which one is better. From an idealistic perspective, a custom editor seems superior, but it would also be a lot of work to get right. Work that could be spent elsewhere. The "checkout" approach allows for re-using existing infrastructure, but doesn't come for free either.

I'm not at all sure where I'll land on that. Maybe start with the checkout approach as a stopgap, with the long-term goal of having a custom editor. But who knows. Either way, today I'd like to start thinking through how having a custom editor affects what syntax is.

With the checkout approach, I think the role of syntax doesn't really change. You still have a plain-text representation of the code, used both for displaying and editing. That's no longer the source code, but I don't think that changes anything fundamentally when it comes to syntax. A custom editor, on the other hand, does change things fundamentally. I'd like to dive into that tomorrow.