
Asciiflow in vs Code - zenghongtu
https://github.com/zenghongtu/vscode-asciiflow2
======
kitd
This is neat.

I reckon there's a reasonably large subset of DSLs in the computing world that
lend themselves to a 2D description, rather than a simplistic 1D sequential
list down a text file. Anything involving concurrency in particular needs more
than just a list.

A graphical language like asciiflow would serve this well. Edit your graph in
the flow diagram and parse it in a specialised parser.

Are there any generic asciiflow parsers out there?

~~~
hinkley
Most source code is already three dimensional, and running code has at least
two, but oddly, only one in common. Any block of text has an X and Y axis. But
we keep jumping in and out of it to other files or functions, which is another
degree of freedom.

A Turing machine has one dimensional storage, but the order of operations
matter quite a bit. So the second axis is time. But in a network, _where_ it
happens also matters. Although one might argue that the entire network is a
single synthetic Turing machine with a segmented tape, and thus it’s just 2
dimensions.

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ewired
It should soon or now be possible to define custom editors for file types in
VS Code[1], so I think this extension would fit very nicely for contributing a
custom editor for plaintext files. I may be wrong, but at first glance, it
doesn't look like this extension makes use of that functionality yet.

[1]: [https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_44#_custom-text-
edi...](https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_44#_custom-text-editors)

------
frumiousirc
See also Emacs Artist mode (1998)

[http://www.lysator.liu.se/~tab/artist/](http://www.lysator.liu.se/~tab/artist/)

~~~
Arkanosis
Which is built-in releases of Emacs for as long as I can remember, btw:

M-x artist-mode

~~~
taeric
I have still yet to see a strong argument for what is so bad about Emacs. When
it seems everything winds up trying to recreate it as they go.

Not that I mind reinventing wheels. I'd hazard Emacs itself reinvented a lot.

~~~
hedora
My main problem with emacs is the lack of out of the box source code indexing
and autocomplete.

I’m sure there’s a way to set it up, but even after years of using emacs, I
haven’t figured it out.

It took me 10 minutes to get VS code to import and index a non-trivial C++
code base, and that’s with no prior VS Code experience. It even popped up some
hints when stuff started going sideways.

~~~
jdormit
If you're willing to give Emacs another shot, check out LSP-mode [0]. It's an
implementation of the language server protocol, the same tech that powers the
autocomplete/jump-to-def/etc. in VS Code, and so it offers exactly the same
functionality for all the same languages. It's true that it's not built into
Emacs, but it's easy to set up and works well.

It's been a total game changer for me - it's allowed me to transition to using
Emacs full-time for professional Python programming.

[0] [https://github.com/emacs-lsp/lsp-mode](https://github.com/emacs-lsp/lsp-
mode)

------
mbar84
Shameless plug:
[https://mbarkhau.keybase.pub/asciigrid/](https://mbarkhau.keybase.pub/asciigrid/)

------
smcleod
Neat, reminds me a bit of Monodraw -
[https://monodraw.helftone.com/](https://monodraw.helftone.com/)

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stiray
This is great, I am using ascii art a lot in comments to visualize flows
(etc.) of code where it is needed instead of additional documents that no one
reads and have much greater possibilty to get out of sync with the code
(although comments have that tendency too). Love it, just provide enough of
primitives with it.

------
thechao
Is there a declarative GUI (cruddish) generator using ASCII art? Asking for a
friend. Preferably for the terminal.

------
benatkin
I thought for a moment it was asciinema in vs code. Now that would be cool!

------
megavolcano
unfortunately this is really hard to look at when using a dark theme -
switching to a light theme is a workaround but it's too bad it's so glaring in
a dark mode.

~~~
SyrupThinker
Version 0.2.0 supposedly added support for dark mode.

[https://github.com/zenghongtu/vscode-
asciiflow2/issues/1#iss...](https://github.com/zenghongtu/vscode-
asciiflow2/issues/1#issuecomment-612443792)

~~~
megavolcano
> released 7 hours ago

Nice, thanks for letting me know.

