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Light Table - a new IDE concept

chris-granger.com

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Re: Light Table - a new IDE concept

#261

Post by zecho »

gbog wrote: post #237
robomartin wrote: post #124

For years I've been bothered by the fact that we still use ASCII text-based documents to program. Having spent a good deal of time programing in APL, a language that uses symbols extensively, I'd like to think that I saw just how different things could be. Having said that, every time I've looked into graphical programming paradigms they almost always seem to fall apart or get in the way of translating ideas and thou…

Text is still the best way too tell a story and programs are just that: stories. I would say that any language requiring a fancy IDE is doomed.

I'm not sure if you can say that text is the best way. It's certainly one way to tell a story, and even a fundamental way to tell a story, but there have been many interesting advancements in storytelling in the last few millennia. I also enjoy pictures and, especially, talking pictures.

Re: Light Table - a new IDE concept

#262

Post by nickik »

s_kilk wrote: post #254
gfodor wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course this comment was inevitable. If Smalltalkers really believe their environment is the right way to code, their attitude should not be one of "we did this first, meh" but instead be "here's what we did right, here's what we did wrong. heed the lessons of history and good luck, you are on a mission from God." I think with the proper care and nurturing, we could be at the beginning of a renaissance where many o…

Interesting stuff, I'm quite new to programming, could you please recommend some reading materials to get acquainted with these ideas? As a newbie, I'd like to educate myself so I can contribute to the "right" projects for this time and learn to avoid the tarpits.

check out udacity, coursera and khanacadamy.

Re: Light Table - a new IDE concept

#264

Post by kermatt »

super_mario wrote: post #258
bsg75 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VisualAge for Java was my thought. Unfortunately, as with many of IBM's good ideas - before its time, poorly marketed/placed, etc.

Visual Age for Java Micro Edition (re-written in Java) became Eclipse framework.

I did not know this. History even in software is interesting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_VisualAge , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclipse_(computing))

I wonder why the built in code repo did not become a feature - unless this another part of the project history I am unaware of.

Re: Light Table - a new IDE concept

#265

Post by egypturnash »

gbog wrote: post #237
robomartin wrote: post #124

For years I've been bothered by the fact that we still use ASCII text-based documents to program. Having spent a good deal of time programing in APL, a language that uses symbols extensively, I'd like to think that I saw just how different things could be. Having said that, every time I've looked into graphical programming paradigms they almost always seem to fall apart or get in the way of translating ideas and thou…

Text is still the best way too tell a story and programs are just that: stories. I would say that any language requiring a fancy IDE is doomed.

Comics and movies are pretty good ways to tell stories too. Some stories are better suited to text. Some are not. I'm in the middle of making a comic that makes deep use of color and the relative position of panels on the page to tell its story, for instance.

What kind of programs are we missing out on by limiting ourselves to text? What kind of programmers?

Re: Light Table - a new IDE concept

#267

Post by peteforde »

tbatterii wrote: post #171
peteforde wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your mention of .frx files just gave me a potent flashback, complete with psychosomatic hives.

yeah sorry about that. I wish I could forget about *.frx and regsvr32 and VSS.

Registering versioned DLLs in Microsoft Transaction Server so that IIS could proxy requests from IE5.5's RDS ActiveX control to allow async callbacks on your 1999 intranet? Priceless.

Those DLLs calling functions in highly specific versions of the library that talks MS Exchange Server's data store protocol? Even more priceless.

Rebuilding an NT box from scratch because a junior developer accidentally installed a new version of Outlook Express which overwrote the working Exchange DLL with a slightly different version that exposes entirely different interfaces (but none that allow VB to access Exchange, curiously enough)? Priceless++

Re: Light Table - a new IDE concept

#268

Post by gfodor »

s_kilk wrote: post #254
gfodor wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course this comment was inevitable. If Smalltalkers really believe their environment is the right way to code, their attitude should not be one of "we did this first, meh" but instead be "here's what we did right, here's what we did wrong. heed the lessons of history and good luck, you are on a mission from God." I think with the proper care and nurturing, we could be at the beginning of a renaissance where many o…

Interesting stuff, I'm quite new to programming, could you please recommend some reading materials to get acquainted with these ideas? As a newbie, I'd like to educate myself so I can contribute to the "right" projects for this time and learn to avoid the tarpits.

Here are some links:

http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy

http://t.co/cJgpnX5B

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4BFC3F13B846707B

http://books.google.com/books/about/Mindstorms.html?id=HhIEA...

http://worrydream.com/

http://vpri.org/

Part 4 primarily of:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Design-Essays-Computer-Scientist/d...

Re: Light Table - a new IDE concept

#269

Post by BerislavLopac »

brico wrote: post #111
pragmatic wrote: post #73

Isn't it ironic that this is posted on a site that does startup funding and the comments are "please put this on kickstarter" not "please apply for Y Combinator"? Is it possible that Kickstarter will disrupt Y combinator style startup funding? If we (the consumers) can bypass the investors and pay for what we want, why do we need the startup gatekeepers? Obviously this wouldn't work for all startups but a large porti…

Kickstarter let's you basically preorder a product that lacks investors. Being a startup investor has become the game rich people love to play. There are people who'll fund anything in return for a small percentage of the company in the hopes it might be the next Google/Facebook/Paypal ... Billionaires don't want to be in the smallprinted section of the forbes-list, they want to be "legends" like Peter Thiel or Andy…

"Kickstarter let's you basically preorder a product that lacks investors."

Exactly. But why do you actually need Kickstarter for that?

Re: Light Table - a new IDE concept

#270

Post by mceachen »

timdorr wrote: post #89
pragmatic wrote: post #73

Isn't it ironic that this is posted on a site that does startup funding and the comments are "please put this on kickstarter" not "please apply for Y Combinator"? Is it possible that Kickstarter will disrupt Y combinator style startup funding? If we (the consumers) can bypass the investors and pay for what we want, why do we need the startup gatekeepers? Obviously this wouldn't work for all startups but a large porti…

Kickstarter is for products, YC is for businesses. (More or less, I'm not saying it's black and white)

Although you can argue that a "product does not make a business," many businesses start off with a single product.

Kickstarter is great way to determine if there is commercial viability for an product, but only within the early adopter customer segment -- and that's about it.

YC primarily looks for teams they like. The description of the product idea in the application is indicative of the team's ability to communicate (which is critical), and the actual idea may give a glimpse into the judgement of the team, but a good number of teams (including mine) pivoted pretty dramatically during our time in YC.

Steve Blank, who spoke to our batch, says that a startup is a temporary organization formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. Understanding this, and understanding when to pivot, was one of the most critical teachings made by YC.

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