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Ask HN: What would an IDE built for the Apple Vision Pro look like?

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Re: Ask HN: What would an IDE built for the Apple Vision Pro look like?

#11

Post by mindcrash »

I think it will be a wholesome natural interface, so I imagine some form of a LLM will be included which can be used to actually make the interface elements work and connect them to the outside world, while having the possibility to design and modify the interface you are building with your hands/fingers (think Interface Builder, but spatial).

If they manage to pull something like this off and be first to market I guess Magic Leap, HoloLens, and whatever Meta is cooking up (if they still are doing something in that space anyway) will very likely be pretty much dead, by the way.

Re: Ask HN: What would an IDE built for the Apple Vision Pro look like?

#12

Post by armchairhacker »

More open windows.

But in all seriousness, you can have a tree of small code windows connected by various dependencies. So it will be much easier to see a piece of code and it’s uses / definitions, and thus understand a codebase’s architecture

Re: Ask HN: What would an IDE built for the Apple Vision Pro look like?

#14

Post by omeze »

vdievsowgdj wrote: post #2

just look at what IDEs that runs exclusively on ios are like: crap. nobody invest into a closed platform. i expect jetbrains to came up with something marvelous for ar/vr, but it will run on the upcoming version of Microsoft or HP glasses. you know, the only ones today that works just like an external monitor without a locked in ecosystem like apple or facebook. the silly apps and games and such will net millions tho…

This is flame-baity but honestly what Id also expect. No one is going to invest in developing IDEs for this thing to rival VS Code or whatever if Apple wants a stranglehold on its ecosystem. Maybe there will be extensions to existing editors since people can ise it as a display extension for their macs. We didn’t see this happen on windows with game dev and the quest though.

Re: Ask HN: What would an IDE built for the Apple Vision Pro look like?

#15

Post by kabirgoel »

thesuperbigfrog wrote: post #3

Most programming work is still text editing with various amounts of debugging, refactoring, and autocompletion. It is not obvious to me how an AR interface would make a difference other than more virtual screen real estate. You would still need a way to enter text, build code, run tests, etc. This means a keyboard and pointing device (mouse, trackpad, etc.) are still needed unless something else can do it better. Gra…

> Most programming work is still text editing [...]

Text no longer needs to be the primary way of conveying programs. There are practical reasons text works best on screens, but if your coding environment is boundless then there’s no reason to believe you can’t do fancier things like direct manipulation of ASTs pretty easily. Imagine "grabbing" an AST node and attaching it to a different parent, all in space.

Beyond simple AST manipulation, the Vision Pro will probably enable Dynamicland-esque "programming spaces" where you manipulate objects in your virtual environment to construct programs.

Re: Ask HN: What would an IDE built for the Apple Vision Pro look like?

#16

Post by 1propionyl »

armchairhacker wrote: post #12

More open windows. But in all seriousness, you can have a tree of small code windows connected by various dependencies. So it will be much easier to see a piece of code and it’s uses / definitions, and thus understand a codebase’s architecture

Get in the car, we're reinventing HyperCard/Smalltalk!

Re: Ask HN: What would an IDE built for the Apple Vision Pro look like?

#17

Post by stoniejohnson »

kabirgoel wrote: post #15
thesuperbigfrog wrote: post #3

Most programming work is still text editing with various amounts of debugging, refactoring, and autocompletion. It is not obvious to me how an AR interface would make a difference other than more virtual screen real estate. You would still need a way to enter text, build code, run tests, etc. This means a keyboard and pointing device (mouse, trackpad, etc.) are still needed unless something else can do it better. Gra…

> Most programming work is still text editing [...] Text no longer needs to be the primary way of conveying programs. There are practical reasons text works best on screens, but if your coding environment is boundless then there’s no reason to believe you can’t do fancier things like direct manipulation of ASTs pretty easily. Imagine "grabbing" an AST node and attaching it to a different parent, all in space. Beyond…

This seems like a very literal interpretation of "spatial computing"; I don't think anyone will be physically manipulating ASTs with any regularity.

Re: Ask HN: What would an IDE built for the Apple Vision Pro look like?

#18

Post by icapybara »

colinplamondon wrote: post #7

I would expect extracting out more of the meta-logic via GPT, and showing relevant panes dynamically. If you get an error, automatically search for the answer and propose the change. If you add a new flow uncovered by tests, propose the test. Generally, have panes that are dynamic to what you are doing, and tightly couple them. I could imagine looking at different zoom levels of a code file, folder, or architecture,…

This sounds kind of frustrating because it would be hard to predict or trigger. “Last time I ran into this error a super helpful window popped up, this time I’m getting nothing?”
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