Smarter cut-and-paste for programming text editors

Abstract

The process of creating software involves many different tools, but the text editor is still one of the most important. Moreover, one of its basic facilities, cut-and-paste, still plays a critical role in enabling simple reuse. In this paper we explore how to improve cut-and-paste within text editors used for programming. We describe how programmers use cut-and-paste for reuse, and suggest the basic underlying principles. We then report on a prototype tool we developed to explore a set of techniques to provide better support for cut-and-paste.