[Haskell'26] The Next 700 Block-Based Editors (Keynote)

The Next 700 Block-Based Editors (Keynote) (Video, Haskell 2026) Ravi Chugh (University of Chicago, USA) Abstract: Block-based code editors have been adopted widely in classrooms with young learners, yet they are often perceived as inferior compared to the ultimate flexibility of text editors. Beyond blocks, alternatives to manipulating programs as text have been pursued through various structure-editing interfaces. But blocks, text, and structure-editing each have merits. Can’t we all just get along? This talk presents ongoing work which aims to integrate these complementary ways of reading, writing, and maintaining programs. The central element is a novel user interface primitive called ragged blocks (or rocks), which allow nested passages of structured text—like code—to be styled and rendered in ways that suggest alluring possibilities for future programming environments and other GUIs. Article: https://doi.org/10.1145/3830439.3839120 ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1339-2889 Video Tags: doi:10.1145/3830439.3839120, orcid:0000-0002-1339-2889 Presentation at the Haskell 2026 symposium, August 28-29, 2026, https://icfp26.sigplan.org/home/haskellsymp-2026 Sponsored by ACM SIGPLAN.