This seems like the right section for this...

So have any of you played with smalltalk? I have... and one of the things I loved the most was the code browser. In fact, I've always thought the environment was one of the best things about the language (smalltalk, that is).

So I thought to myself, why can't perl have that too? Then I thought, it can! A bit of hacking later got me to this point.

What I have is a barely-bootstrapped browser. Barely meaning that it is just barely self-sufficient (but it is self sufficient).

In other words, I have created a mini programming environment, and the code for that environment is inside the environment, and due to the lovely interpreted nature of perl, changes to the code take place immediately. This is not a new idea... like I said, the whole smalltalk thing. It is self-sufficient in that any other features you could ever want can be added from within the system (with the exception of the startup script which loads the system in the first place... but whos counting? Besides, I'm sure that could be integrated too...).

Of course, in theory, this could one day be useful. Especially as a sort of teaching tool. You can, for instance, highlight a section of code and hit the "Print It" button on the toolbar, and it will evaluate the code and print the result. Try it on "5+7" or something.

You will need the newest gtk-perl, Gtk-Perl-0.7006 which can be attained from your nearest cpan mirror. (Also see the gtk-perl Homepage.

You can get the source here, and a screenshot. Don't mind the sloppy coding and the (possibly) strange way I structured the whole thing. It is, after all, mostly a proof-of-concept. And don't mind the buggies (but feel free to fix them and send me the results!).

I hope I've explained it well enough. I personally consider this a Cool Use For Perl.

In reply to Smalltalk-like browser for perl by awwaiid

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