Mark Smith's runtime procedure editor, PED [L1 ], is a sort of dynamic debugger which developers use to make changes to programs while running. At least occasionally, Richard Hipp cites PED as an example component for his vision of "Database as Program", where all source-code is fully versioned in a single-file data manager such as Metakit or sqlite. This leads to such thoughts as a "self-hosting development environment" easily smart enough to correct both the currently running process and a more persistent source image. Other natural fall-outs are "user-editable help screens", built-in versioning, and more efficiently-reclaimed memory.
20sep04 jcw - By using Tcl's standard VFS as interface, you'll get storage layer independence (and instantly usable starkits). FWIW, Ramon Ribo's RamDebugger has a similar kind of in-process editing capability (as well as debug/breakpoint facilities). I've always been a fan of bringing stored and in-process code concepts closer together. My own older experiments in this direction are Tequila, Iohan, and "ns", a TclVFS driver which provides VFS access to variables and procs. Perhaps some of these items can serve as basis, starting point, or even just inspiration in this direction. Would be grand, IMO!
tkinspect was one of the first of this type of program that I ever saw. It might be interesting, some time, to track several of these type programs down and discuss the differences in each.
The methods described in Tkcon as an IDE shell provide a similar capability to fire up an external editor (Vim) on variables and procs defined in the running tkon.