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This critique seems to be analogous to a low level language programmer dismissing the benefits of a high level language because both are Turing complete. Yes both IDEs may be able to do similar things, but it's the immediacy with which you can do them which sets them apart. http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html
You gave the answer yourself: if you want to make programmers more productive build a higher level language , not an IDE. IMHO IDEs are overrated. If any process can be automated, it will eventually end up in code, not in a GUI. [disclaimer: i dont use any IDE)
No one would think about using a language without a compiler, developers increasingly feel the same way about the IDE.
Of course the original video was not perfect. It is a concept, not a fully fleshed out product. It piqued peoples interest for good reason, because of a combination of many ideas working together in a clean interface. To criticise it for details ('this takes up half the screen', 'some of these things have been done before', 'this particular feature might not work for the kinds of work I do') is to entirely miss the p…
Someone built a concept showing how the experience of writing code, for their corner of the software ecosystem, could be improved. They found popular support, and they're now setting about to make that concept happen. Congratulations; this is what Hacker News is supposed to be all about.
And here's someone summarily piecing apart and nitpicking on that concept (and the details of the demo video) for no apparent reason—there's no feedback or suggestions for improvement, it's just saying "well Eclipse does this and this and this already". I'm not impressed.
LightTable isn't going to be a great fit for some languages, specifically c, c#, java and c++ style languages; I'm extremely dubious you'll be able to get the sort 'instant feedback' shown in the demo for that sort of compiled complex language with cyclic dependencies (A imports B imports C, imports A. Yay, java... :P).
...but really, that's not what it's targeting.
So, fair criticism to the author I feel: don't complain you won't be able to use a hammer to cut down a tree.
I find this 'critique' (it's not a critique, it's a takedown) to run against the spirit of Hacker News. Someone built a concept showing how the experience of writing code, for their corner of the software ecosystem, could be improved. They found popular support, and they're now setting about to make that concept happen. Congratulations; this is what Hacker News is supposed to be all about. And here's someone summaril…
I find this 'critique' (it's not a critique, it's a takedown) to run against the spirit of Hacker News. Someone built a concept showing how the experience of writing code, for their corner of the software ecosystem, could be improved. They found popular support, and they're now setting about to make that concept happen. Congratulations; this is what Hacker News is supposed to be all about. And here's someone summaril…
That and the clear lack of experience with anything different than Java is clearly heavily influencing his perspective.
And I think there is no malice, it's just biased without realising it
You're comparing Java to Clojure. Conceptually, they're insanely different--Apple and Oranges, really. Clojure, Lisp, and similar languages are homoiconic. That means they're beautifully suited to an interactive environment such as that provided by LightTable. Conceptually, unlike typical IDEs, LightTable is not a series of scripts that will attempt to help you deal with common development tasks such as looking up do…
When using Java, I often change my program while it is running. recompiling classes on the fly. It works in most cases, and when it doesn't work, I believe other languages would fail as well.
You say Java is deeply flawed. I argue that Java is one of the most successful languages around nowadays. It does what it is designed to do: be relatively easy to learn, a natural successor to C++ with a wide range of libraries. Yes, Java code can often be verbose, but this depends greatly on the kind of paradigms used. I can write verbose and ugly code in Clojure and write relatively concise and elegant code in Java. It depends on architecture, a good understanding of OOP (and its limitations), composition over inheritance. The problem with Java is the sheer amount of 'bad' code written in it (because of all the leagues of beginner programmers), giving it a bad name. Have you seen Clojure code of a large product (equivalent to around 1M code lines of Java), produced by a team of diverse programmers and maintained by another team during a 10 year lifespan? You would cringe just as hard.
Finally, lighttable is a proof-of-concept... It's not there yet; there are no reviews; leagues of smart engineers have tried to reproduce something similar and could not escape the POC phase at all.
I find this 'critique' (it's not a critique, it's a takedown) to run against the spirit of Hacker News. Someone built a concept showing how the experience of writing code, for their corner of the software ecosystem, could be improved. They found popular support, and they're now setting about to make that concept happen. Congratulations; this is what Hacker News is supposed to be all about. And here's someone summaril…
one reason is probably that he is the developer of a "DVR for Java" that "Record entire execution of your Java app" and allows you to "Play it back on any machine". That and the clear lack of experience with anything different than Java is clearly heavily influencing his perspective. And I think there is no malice, it's just biased without realising it