If this would be easy to add to DrRacket, it might be worthwhile...
When you mouseover syntax for a toplevel identifier, a tooltip-like
transient display can sometimes show the value. (By sometimes, I mean,
perhaps, when either there is a run in progress, or a run has completed
and the value is still available and not somehow believed to be "out of
date".)
This is some limited variable debugging, without having to run a
debugger. I suspect it's most useful when using DrRacket as a fancy
script/worksheet calculator.
Latest scenario in which I've wanted this: I'm doing my complicated tax
returns in DrRacket (for better traceability of
data/decisions/dependencies than the forms permit), and it would be
convenient to be able to see the derived/calculated values in the source
code view.
For example, in code below, I would like to be able to mouseover
`irs-schedule-b-required?` to see the answer, and if it's true, then I
might want to quickly mouseover the other identifiers, to see why:
(define irs-schedule-b-required?
(or
irs-schedule-b-question-have-over-1500-of-taxable-interest-or-ordinary-dividends
irs-schedule-b-question-received-interest-from-seller-financed-mortage-and-buyer-used-property-as-personal-residence
irs-schedule-b-question-reporting-oid-in-amount-less-than-amount-shown-on-form-1099oid
irs-schedule-b-question-reducing-interest-income-on-a-bond-by-amount-of-amortizable-bond-premium
irs-schedule-b-question-claming-exclusion-of-interest-from-series-ee-or-i-us-savings-bonds-issues-after-1989
irs-schedule-b-question-received-intrest-or-ordinary-dividends-as-a-nominee
irs-schedule-b-question-had-financial-interest-in-or-signature-authority-over-financial-account-in-foreign-country
irs-schedule-b-question-received-a-distribution-from-or-were-grantor-of-or-transferor-to-a-foreign-trust))
For now, I'm doing `define/log` for all the toplevel calculations, which
works well enough for my immediate needs, but I think that the DrRacket
feature I suggested would have more general usefulness.
(define-syntax define/log
(syntax-rules ()
((_ ID VAL)
(begin (define ID VAL)
(log-taxes-debug "(define ~A ~S)" (quote ID) ID)))))
An alternative idea I had was to have an option for DrRacket
programmatically modify the source code after a run, to insert comments
for calculated toplevel bindings (that are not void, procedures, etc.)
on the next line, such as:
;;==> #false
That could be a crazy but useful kludge sometimes, but the mouseover
idea is more idiomatic of DrRacket, and mouseover could be enabled all
the time for everyone.
Neil V.
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