Tofu: post-stone age coding
Tofu is an experimental VSCode extension for structured-yet-fluid code writing with JavaScript and TypeScript.
Its goal is to provide more semantically meaningful code transformations while also offering escape hatches for direct literal code editing. A secondary goal is to minimize moments of broken syntax.
Given my limited resources of time, I sacrifice efficiency at the altar of iterating on the idea. Tofu re-parses the whole file on every edit, using Babel and formats it with Prettier after most actions. This is not incremental, and costly for large files. In the short-term I make it work by not having large file, which I tend to favor anyway.
In the longer term, I'd love for Tofu to use an incremental parser like TreeSitter instead.
In terms of experience, depending on where you are coming from, this might be a radical change to how you usually code. Forget thinking about code style or managing syntax and slide into the world of literal structural editing.
The keymap is designed to be familiar and literal. These are the basic actions which are usable in most contexts:
| Action | Key(s) |
|---|---|
| Cursor | |
| Move | ← ↑ → ↓ |
| Jump | ⌥ Alt ← ⌥ Alt → |
| Selection | ⇧ Shift + |
| Extend | + ↑ |
| Shrink | + ↓ |
| Neighbors | + ← + → |
| Add new line | ⏎ Enter (below) ⇧ Shift ⏎ Enter (above) |
| Wrap | ⌥ Alt ↓ (Select) ( (Parenthesize) { (Object) [ (Array) > (Function) < (JSX) |
| Unwrap | ⌥ Alt ↑ |
| Move Node | ⇧ Shift ⌥ Alt ← ⇧ Shift ⌥ Alt → |
| Toggle Tofu (Escape hatch) | Esc |
On top of this there are around 50 contextual actions (and counting). A few examples:
eat the end of anif-block will add anelsebranch, placing the cursor within the new blocklat the start of a variable declaration will replace the kind (e.g.const) withlet- many are small in nature such as
[at the end of an expression inserting[0]instead to minimize broken syntactical states
I am sure there are many I have not thought of, so contributions in the forms of new issues describing your expectations and wishes are greatly appreciated.
The opposite is also true, Tofu makes assumptions about what the right action is in which context. Please let me know where I have baked in assumptions which do not jive with your style.
I will stop thinking of Tofu as an experiment once I and other users deem it a clear workflow improvement and the project has found a path towards monetary sustainability.