Parallel reading

[Mitch Bradley]

Michael Veith wrote:
> ...
> Yes, right. I'd prefer a lot more books than only two. And let me  
> state some kind of -let's call it- insight. I see some parallels  
> between the manner one reads religious texts like the Bible or the  
> Koran and the reading of code (at least in object-oriented languages,  
> especially like in Smalltlalk/Squeak but also in Java if possible).  
> Earlier in this disussion, GnomeSword was mentioned and its ability to  
> allow parallel reading in different parts of the book. When I browse  
> through Squeak code I do quite a similar thing. When I do research in  
> scientific texts I sometimes do the same (though not as often as in  
> code work).
> Do you have similar experiences? Me as a linguist, I find this  
> phenomenon quite interesting. What about an activity that may enable  
> users this kind of text work? We'd need a common standard, maybe like  
> the format coming with bible read (and maybe in some sort of  
> application like the System Browser in Squeak provides).
>   
> ...
>
> P.S.: Please share your reading manners with the list, I guess we  
> really could miss something when "kicking" (socially not technically  
> nor physically) a good activity out due to pseudo-neutral resentments  
> against differing motivations of writing code ;-)
>   

That is a very good point.  For me, the ability to look at two or 
sometimes more places in the same document is very important.  That is 
one of things that locked me into EMACS early on in my career (back when 
vi didn't have multiple buffers/views, and window systems existed only 
inside Xerox PARC).

The lack of this ability in Adobe Reader sometimes causes me to print a 
page so I can see it side by side with another section.