i.e. we display the code as plain text, and that's what it is.
That's what it is to us - obviously to the interpreter/compiler/running process it's something else.
What is that something else that we could use to represent a program that is at the same time a plain text file? Some form of data format that could also be read as the AST of the program...
Say, you've got MSc. in AI - you must've heard of a once-popular AI language called Lisp at some point? You know, the one where the code is the data and the data is the code? Where you can see the AST right in front of you because of the ridiculously simple syntax?
Image based coding is so last century sadly, despite the most popular IDE in the world being Microsoft Excel. Plain text is... well, plain. No real worries about reading and writing - or forwards compatibility. Even Smalltalk can be represented as a text file.
By removing the coupling of formatting and semantics this way, we can also use wildly different formatting (e.g. a graph editor) on different systems, but modify the same underlying semantics.
That's what it is to us - obviously to the interpreter/compiler/running process it's something else.
What is that something else that we could use to represent a program that is at the same time a plain text file? Some form of data format that could also be read as the AST of the program...
Say, you've got MSc. in AI - you must've heard of a once-popular AI language called Lisp at some point? You know, the one where the code is the data and the data is the code? Where you can see the AST right in front of you because of the ridiculously simple syntax?
Image based coding is so last century sadly, despite the most popular IDE in the world being Microsoft Excel. Plain text is... well, plain. No real worries about reading and writing - or forwards compatibility. Even Smalltalk can be represented as a text file.
Try something from Wolfram
I'm not really sure what you're trying to say here...
Fair enough... reading it back I'm not sure either!