Block-based code editors have been adopted widely in classrooms with young learners, yet they are often perceived as inferior compared to the ultimate flexibility of text editors. Beyond blocks, alternatives to manipulating programs as text have been pursued through various structure-editing interfaces. But blocks, text, and structure-editing each have merits. Can’t we all just get along? This talk presents ongoing work which aims to integrate these complementary ways of reading, writing, and maintaining programs. The central element is a novel user interface primitive called ragged blocks (or rocks), which allow nested passages of structured text—like code—to be styled and rendered in ways that suggest alluring possibilities for future programming environments and other GUIs.

Ravi Chugh is an associate professor of computer science at the University of Chicago. His research aims to develop graphical IDEs as well as programmable GUIs. As of mid-2026, he is (slowly) working through the stages of grief associated with the onset of LLM-based AI in the world.