This particular instance is a little grotesque (tables? really?), but I salute the imagination involved.
It's at least _possible_ that we might be able to program with something that isn't ASCII art. That doesn't mean that we have to do down the loony 'try to program with pictures' approach, just that flat ASCII text isn't always that fantastic. I'd love, for example, to be able to select exactly what a comment refers to and ensure it doesn't get 'orphaned'. I'm also pretty convinced that the world of graphic design may offer some tasteful-yet-extremely clear assistance in resolving things like multiple nested blocks or brackets/parens...
Text, IMO, is still king, but it'd be nice to see a little imagination and experimentation in this area rather than the reflexive howling about how if someone touches the Sacred Holy Text File we won't be able to use all our other textual utilities from the 1970s and how it's all just a slippery slope leading to UML "Programming for Managers" systems. :-)
It's at least _possible_ that we might be able to program with something that isn't ASCII art. That doesn't mean that we have to do down the loony 'try to program with pictures' approach, just that flat ASCII text isn't always that fantastic. I'd love, for example, to be able to select exactly what a comment refers to and ensure it doesn't get 'orphaned'. I'm also pretty convinced that the world of graphic design may offer some tasteful-yet-extremely clear assistance in resolving things like multiple nested blocks or brackets/parens...
Text, IMO, is still king, but it'd be nice to see a little imagination and experimentation in this area rather than the reflexive howling about how if someone touches the Sacred Holy Text File we won't be able to use all our other textual utilities from the 1970s and how it's all just a slippery slope leading to UML "Programming for Managers" systems. :-)