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Natto.dev – A Canvas for JavaScript

natto.dev

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Re: Natto.dev – A Canvas for JavaScript

#61

Post by dvaun »

xcambar wrote: post #22

This is incredibly useful, a lot of my peers will certainly love it for quick prototyping data manipulation and exploration. I know I will. This is a very clever/usable implementation of flow-based programming (FBP), which is dear to many people's heart in HN and out. FBP matches very easily the mental model of data flow and calls for quick mouse- or touch-based manipulation. Coming up with a usable UX for such parad…

Flow-based programming is also what came to mind when I explored the site.

For interested readers there is a decent article[0] and previous discussion[1] a few months back which discusses this topic.

[0]: https://jpaulm.github.io/fbp/index.html

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25848542

Re: Natto.dev – A Canvas for JavaScript

#62

Post by angleofrepose »

ikurei wrote: post #58
angleofrepose wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great project in a space that I've been playing around for a little while, fun to see it here! I'm interested in hearing what you think are some of the more difficult problems or bugs you've come across during development. Did you hit any stumbling blocks around handling user code or integrating babel or the terminal? Do you have any insights about preventing errors or crashes in how you parse and eval user…

Would you mind sharing other interesting examples of projects in this vein? Thanks!

The future of coding link in the parent has a large list of similarly spirited projects. I have scattered lists of similar projects but none handy or packaged well. I'll point you to the Ink&Switch article on end user programming. https://www.inkandswitch.com/end-user-programming.html And encourage you to check out personal sites of the people involved. The lively kernel is a programming kit project that's been around in various incarnations for a long time. https://lively-next.org/ The history of Eve (also linked by that future of coding page) is rich and full of references to other projects http://witheve.com/ VPRI similarly is a gateway to lots of history on personal computing http://www.vpri.org/ of particular interest to me there is the graphical language Nile and the meta compiler Ohm. http://worrydream.com/ Bret Victor's site is another gateway you may have heard of, and the researchers at Dynamicland are also well worth exploring. More future of coding resources https://github.com/d-cook/SomethingNew

For more actual environments you can use I recommend https://observablehq.com/, https://starboard.gg/ and emacs along with the links above.

Re: Natto.dev – A Canvas for JavaScript

#63

Post by mbar84 »

Request: Zoom with Ctrl+Scroll.

I imagine this might be quite useful to understand data-flow, but I worry that it would be tedious to manage the connections via positions during development.

It would be cool to have an auto-format/auto-layout: - data flowing left to right - draw pipes like yahoo pipes used to - minimize crossing pipes.

When in the programming loop, could the connections be established automatically via references? Name each output and then reference it somewhere else, which implicitly establishes the connection. Then click "auto-layout" (or just hit save) and as Steve would say "BOOM".

Re: Natto.dev – A Canvas for JavaScript

#64

Post by preommr »

arethuza wrote: post #38
wccrawford wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Warning people that they won't be able to get back to this site is not an overreaction.

It looks like an innocent bug and to get back to HN takes me two clicks rather than one, not really something I can get too excited about, particularly when it showing something new.

This is not a bug, it's how web apps are supposed to work.

The url should be updated to reference the current app view - this way you can copy the url for that particular resource and access it again by pasting with the same url.

This is how it worked for headers when websites were just plain documents. It's a very powerful feature and is exactly what the web is about - sharing resources easily.

Browsers have different ways of dealing with this like grouping items in the back history by domain, so that it's easy to leave the site back to page previous to the app session.

Re: Natto.dev – A Canvas for JavaScript

#67

Post by tluyben2 »

paulshen wrote: post #44

Hi all! Developer here before first coffee I'm actively working on natto.dev and it really is in "preview". I'm excited about the future of programming and having a canvas to explore it on. still looking for "crazier" ideas - my favorite current one is dragging a column out of a table. https://twitter.com/_paulshen/status/1366801887341649924 The more I work on it, the more confident I am that there's something there.…

Very nicely done! Keep up the good work. Any chance you are making it open source? Fine if you are not , but at least consider doing that if (!) you ever get fed up with it (wish everyone would do that if legally possible).

Re: Natto.dev – A Canvas for JavaScript

#68

Post by sensanaty »

FpUser wrote: post #30
wccrawford wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Warning people that they won't be able to get back to this site is not an overreaction.

Not to condone but I never rely on back button when using references in context of some longer material I am currently reading. I always right click and open in new window. So to me the problem mostly mute.

Fun fact, middle clicks and ctrl+left click will also open links in a new tab!

Re: Natto.dev – A Canvas for JavaScript

#70

Post by verifex »

I really like how it looks. Here's my only ideas for improving it:

* Some navigation buttons for zooming and panning quickly, maybe the mousewheel or a minimap?

* I like how you can drag arrows around to different windows, I think the icon there isn't super intuitive but that's a minor gripe! :)

I think one of the examples is broken, but dang you should add more examples, I like this kind of tool!

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