tj III editor in eclipse

[John]

TJ III developers,

I started to build a syntax sensitive editor for Task Juggler III on
the eclipse platform. I hope you would view this effort favorably,
and that I may bring some questions to this forum at times. I hope
that I can help you meet your goals at the same time meeting my own.
I agree with the goal of using a common text editor for Task Juggler,
and I think a correctly implemented syntax sensitive editor can
broaden Task Juggler's acceptance.

I'm doing this out of interest in the eclipse platform, and its
toolset for domain specific language development, Xtext. I am working
at this with the background of a software developer, not a project
manager, and I don't have any hands on, practical experience with Task
Juggler, and little experience with project management software
generally. I hope that I can ask questions on these forums (dev or
user) to learn more about this tool and pm discipline.

The code is available: https://github.com/jjfraney/tjpeditor

Among these files is a grammar of the TJIII language, which might be
interesting to you. I think the editor is too limited in features
right now to make a good impression in a demo, but I'll see if I can
produce one.

Thanks.
John

[Chris Schlaeger]

John,

On Mon, Sep 26, 2011 at 1:34 AM, John <jjfr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I started to build a syntax sensitive editor for Task Juggler III on
> the eclipse platform.  I hope you would view this effort favorably,
> and that I may bring some questions to this forum at times.  I hope
> that I can help you meet your goals at the same time meeting my own.
> I agree with the goal of using a common text editor for Task Juggler,
> and I think a correctly implemented syntax sensitive editor can
> broaden Task Juggler's acceptance.

that's exiting news! I always welcome programmers joining the
TaskJuggler ecosystem. Please keep us posted on your progress.

> The code is available: https://github.com/jjfraney/tjpeditor
>
> Among these files is a grammar of the TJIII language, which might be
> interesting to you.  I think the editor is too limited in features
> right now to make a good impression in a demo, but I'll see if I can
> produce one.

The TJ3 parser is also using a lex/yacc style grammar. It's encoded in
Ruby, but dumping it in some other format is probably not much work.
Typing in the full grammar is already a lot of work, but keeping up
with the changes will probably even more painful. Just something to
consider.

Chris

[John J. Franey]

On Sep 29, 4:09 pm, Chris Schlaeger <cschlae...@gmail.com> wrote:
> John,
>

> On Mon, Sep 26, 2011 at 1:34 AM, John <jjfra...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I started to build a syntax sensitive editor for Task Juggler III on
> > the eclipse platform.  I hope you would view this effort favorably,
> > and that I may bring some questions to this forum at times.  I hope
> > that I can help you meet your goals at the same time meeting my own.
> > I agree with the goal of using a common text editor for Task Juggler,
> > and I think a correctly implemented syntax sensitive editor can
> > broaden Task Juggler's acceptance.
>
> that's exiting news! I always welcome programmers joining the
> TaskJuggler ecosystem. Please keep us posted on your progress.

Thank you.

>
> > The code is available:https://github.com/jjfraney/tjpeditor
>
> > Among these files is a grammar of the TJIII language, which might be
> > interesting to you.  I think the editor is too limited in features
> > right now to make a good impression in a demo, but I'll see if I can
> > produce one.
>
> The TJ3 parser is also using a lex/yacc style grammar. It's encoded in
> Ruby, but dumping it in some other format is probably not much work.
> Typing in the full grammar is already a lot of work, but keeping up
> with the changes will probably even more painful. Just something to
> consider.
>

Yes. This is a painful part of the work, and if there is much flux in
the grammar, then this editor will be out of sync. I've been using
the online reference and TjpSyntaxRules.rb as reference. I will keep
an eye on it with git. Are you expecting the grammar to change much?

> Chris

[Chris Schlaeger]

On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 2:19 AM, John J. Franey <jjfr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Yes.  This is a painful part of the work, and if there is much flux in
> the grammar, then this editor will be out of sync.  I've been using
> the online reference and TjpSyntaxRules.rb as reference.  I will keep
> an eye on it with git.  Are you expecting the grammar to change much?

The actual grammar won't change anymore. The next release will be 3.0
and any release after that will be most likely fully syntax backwards
compatible. But the syntax will still be extended and
TjpSyntaxRules.rb needs some cleanup. The syntax is ruby parser
friendly, but not as human readable as it should be. You can try
watching for changes. If that won't work, I can probably dump the
syntax in some EBNF like format.

Chris