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The Larch Environment

larchenvironment.com

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Re: The Larch Environment

#21

Post by dvanduzer »

noir_lord wrote: post #17
dvanduzer wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LightTable started from Clojure. Larch is based on Python. Neither is based on Mathematica. edit: What I mean is that iPython Notebooks are one of the few toolkits that are starting to take hold in academia in applications where Mathematica rules. Nobody in "serious number crunching academia" uses Clojure.

I'm not a mathematician but last year iPython saved my bacon big style when I suddenly needed to convert a dozen pages of dense math to an API with no notice. I checked it all into iPython and then poked around playing with the equations to get a grasp of how they worked and what sane outputs would be, it was an incredibly powerful experience as it allowed me to visualise what was happening in a way I'd never been ab…

I recommend this to everybody with even a little bit of interest in mathematics: http://camdavidsonpilon.github.io/Probabilistic-Programming-...

Re: The Larch Environment

#22

Post by ibdknox »

mtrimpe wrote: post #16
lispm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Lighttalble is a visual programming environment. Last I looked it just had some visual enhancements, but the code is plain old text in files.

It's meant to be. It has the infrastructure to be. It just doesn't have the documentation and ecosystem to show how.

My original goal wasn't ever to really create a visual programming environment, though the mismatch here might just be us using the term "visual" differently. We wanted to make something that allowed people to create whatever representation of their code/project/etc they want, but I didn't really expect that to ever turn into code generation via graphical media.

Code Bubbles isn't visual programming as the term is typically used, it's just a way of organizing text in a more meaningful way.

Re: The Larch Environment

#23

Post by [deleted] »

mtrimpe wrote: post #16
lispm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Lighttalble is a visual programming environment. Last I looked it just had some visual enhancements, but the code is plain old text in files.

It's meant to be. It has the infrastructure to be. It just doesn't have the documentation and ecosystem to show how.

[deleted]

Re: The Larch Environment

#24

Post by vegggdor »

javajosh wrote: post #10

Confession: I watched with interest until he added the reset button. At this point, he silently starts making classic textual changes. A non-obvious but quite bad thing is that it required simultaneous multiple edits in disparate parts of the file - each of which required expert knowledge of the libraries, the language, and the file itself. This is why visual programming environments suck - because in the end, you st…

Instead of text editing, sliders and knobs to manipulate values work well. Music lends itself well to graphic interfaces, because of it's sequential nature, you don't usually work with text or conditionals. Especially for the _feedback_ anything visual works a treat though.

With expert systems you work blind half the time, because of the size, that you can't get all into scope. So you simplify and make abstractions, but it's complicated to map multidimensional decision space onto 2d. Therefore a good visual programming environment would have to be a complicated system, that, well, you'd have to learn to navigate and memorize.

Don't know what you mean, how to _incrementally_ add or reset a button, like Undo/Redo?

Re: The Larch Environment

#25

Post by ibdknox »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #19
mtrimpe wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LightTable will continue on, but it seems to no longer be the main focus of Chris. The curse I speak of is http://www.lambdassociates.org/blog/bipolar.htm Not that I'm implying Chris is bipolar at all but it's an apt description of the trap many great Lispers fall into.

That is unfair. From what I understand, Chris and company had ambitious goals for lighttable that were not achievable because of the Clojure programming model, so rather than give up, they are taking the next step that they see as necessary.

That's correct. There are so many things we'd love to do with LT, but the truth is (as Sean knows quite well) our current programming models simply don't support a lot of the experiences we should have.

We started to hit roadblocks with our current paradigms and we happened to get lucky enough to stumble on some ideas that could move us forward. What we're working on now is the foundation necessary to do things we've always wanted to do (and awesomely, far more).

We'll be announcing some cool stuff soon, but the gist is that we have to look at the whole stack to find something better. So that's what we're doing.

Re: The Larch Environment

#26

Post by vegggdor »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #20
callmeed wrote: post #18

Can someone explain to me the difference between "visual programming" tools like this and environments that have existed for years such as VisualBasic, MS Access, Flash, Dreamweaver, and XCode Storyboards? (Yes, I know many are mainly about UI but they all allow programming to some degree). Are tools like Larch and LightTable aiming to be "visual programming done right" or is this a completely new ( buzzword warning…

Visual programming is a broad term that has been used to describe programming with visual aspects. Lets not even discuss visual programming languages, like Quartz Composer.

Please, do go on!

Re: The Larch Environment

#27

Post by lispm »

mtrimpe wrote: post #15
SeoxyS wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate as to what you think happened to LightTable? What is this "curse of Lisp" that you speak of?

LightTable will continue on, but it seems to no longer be the main focus of Chris. The curse I speak of is http://www.lambdassociates.org/blog/bipolar.htm Not that I'm implying Chris is bipolar at all but it's an apt description of the trap many great Lispers fall into.

The notion of a Lisp curse and the Bipolar Lisp Programmer is just bullshit. What he describes, true or not, is not particularly tied in any way to Lisp. He perceives it, because he lives in his bubble surround by his Lisp dialects and the attempts to make it popular.

Re: The Larch Environment

#28

Post by arloft »

javajosh wrote: post #10

Confession: I watched with interest until he added the reset button. At this point, he silently starts making classic textual changes. A non-obvious but quite bad thing is that it required simultaneous multiple edits in disparate parts of the file - each of which required expert knowledge of the libraries, the language, and the file itself. This is why visual programming environments suck - because in the end, you st…

First reply, be gentle. I think the problem you're describing is one that results when an expert tries to teach / design something to beginners and they forget how to present the information in an approachable manner. Sure, with code it _seems_ like "duh of course you need to _know_ the libraries to use a visual editor!" but that goes against the basic concept of having a visual styled IDE.

I'm a UX / visual design guy very interested in learning to program, have been for several years. But it's just not approachable beyond stuff like CodeAcademy, as it quickly becomes a labyrinth of documentation, cryptic instructions, and unclear ways to approach building a worthwhile program.

I digress, as that's not my point. Point is, many visual editors, even Quartz Composer, fail on the same area; they aren't approachable beyond tinkering with the switches and buttons. UX isn't even a passing thought on these tools. I would love to participate in building one of these tools and learning X language in the process. Until a visual designer is involved, these tools will continue being relegated to tiny niches unless a visionary developer comes along (-and actually completes the thing, as was mentioned above about the LightTable Chris guy).

I'm not saying design is _the_ answer, but all the best tools have been co-created with a visual/ mechanical/ industrial/ designer of some kind.

Re: The Larch Environment

#29

Post by vegggdor »

namuol wrote: post #14
CoffeeDregs wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never seen it. Looks interesting, though very high level? I'll check out the youtube videos they mention: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZlv_N0_O1gaG5BW72It4c...

I wouldn't really call it "high level" -- it appears to me to interface pretty directly with underlying C++ classes and methods, and the actual flow of the code is exactly a sort of single-threaded flow of "ordinary" programming languages.

With the amount of supporting and abstracting classes supporting the wrapped ones, of grunt work done already, it sure as hell is high level. Visual Programming is not a paradigm like functional or declarative. In this case though, it offers separation of presentation and implementation, if that makes any sense. I never quite grogged that idiom.

This isn't exactly ment for Programmers, but level designers going one step further. Besides that, it offers accessibility that is very immediate. The visuals can provide a direct feedback of the signals processed (may the movement in the background not be random), relating the properties of the signal to other signs than textual symbols (e.g. to show a color's hue just dye the slider).

Re: The Larch Environment

#30

Post by namuol »

vegggdor wrote: post #29
namuol wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't really call it "high level" -- it appears to me to interface pretty directly with underlying C++ classes and methods, and the actual flow of the code is exactly a sort of single-threaded flow of "ordinary" programming languages.

With the amount of supporting and abstracting classes supporting the wrapped ones, of grunt work done already, it sure as hell is high level. Visual Programming is not a paradigm like functional or declarative. In this case though, it offers separation of presentation and implementation, if that makes any sense. I never quite grogged that idiom. This isn't exactly ment for Programmers, but level designers going one s…

Blueprint follows a pretty strict procedural design, but it executes it quite well. It's easy to imagine Blueprint's design used essentially to write something like vanilla C (without support for preprocessor).

I don't see how the inclusion of support functions and classes for engine interaction implies that Blueprint's language design is "sure-as-hell" high-level, per se, but in practice you're right that its design case is pretty high level.

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