Forest: Structural Code Editing with Multiple Cursors

Explore a novel approach to code refactoring in this 35-minute conference talk from ACM SIGPLAN. Dive into Forest, a structural code editor that bridges the gap between interactive code editors and expressive refactoring scripts. Learn about its unique structural multi-cursor design, enabling complex refactorings by performing simultaneous actions across multiple program locations. Discover how Forest combines the interactivity of text-based editors with the power of tree-based program manipulation. Examine the evaluation of Forest's capabilities in performing edits from real-world refactoring scripts and understand its potential for small-scale specialized refactorings. Gain insights into the motivation behind Forest, its comparison with find-replace and multi-cursor text editors, and its hierarchical cursor system. Conclude with a summary of Forest's strengths and potential impact on structural editing for code refactoring.

Motivation
Find-replace with regular expressions
Multi-cursor text editor
AST-based refactoring scripts
Multi-cursor features of Forest
Hierarchy of cursors
Evaluation
Summary