- Author
- James Vaughan
- Published
- 1 July 2025
- Kind
- Personal blog post, with a small proof-of-concept demo
- Original
- jamesbvaughan.com/bidirectional-editing/
- Subject
- Future of computing
What it is
James Vaughan is a programmer who likes code-based CAD for home projects. The post responds to an idea from Kevin Lynagh's codeCAD work. It shows a server linking any LSP editor to a web GUI.
What it says
- Vaughan built a proof of concept for live two-way editing of code and GUI.
- The demo uses a small server. It speaks LSP to the editor and WebSockets to a web app.
- Vaughan says live two-way editing in your own editor is new, as far as known.
- Vaughan found no code-based CAD system with more than two of three wanted features.
- Vaughan first said Zoo lacked this, then corrected the post. Zoo has a language server for kcl.
- Vaughan does not plan to develop the demo further. OpenSCAD with its language server is suggested as a next place to try.
- Vaughan lists unsolved work: conflict resolution, incremental edits and the internals of language servers.
What evidence it gives
The evidence is a working toy demo, shown in a video, plus linked code. The comparison of CAD tools is the author's informal survey.
Interests and limits
The author calls it a toy demo and will not extend it. The author works at Arcol, a CAD company, and mentions hiring there. Conflict handling and incremental edits were not built. The demo video and linked code were not viewed.