LightTable detailed critique: Concept vs Reality
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LightTable detailed critique: Concept vs Reality
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Re: LightTable detailed critique: Concept vs Reality
#2I agree with most of the points - documentation is well covered by IDE's, yep, I guess (don't use IDE's myself) ... finding functions is also pretty solved (personally I just use grep).
But I disagree with the part about small functions and the example being contrived because real world functions aren't small and you can't just get your output directly like that.
First of all, functions should be small. Anything you can unit test, you can put in this sort of instant feedback. It's basically just a unit test! Input goes in, output comes out. Without side-effects or other horrors.
Okay, so not all functions make sense to be unit tested. Sometimes you need an integration test and the function can't have direct output like that ... you have integration tests don't you? Why not just evolve the "Instant feedback" feature to being your set of tests?
I honestly don't care about much else in the LightTable demo. But I love the idea of instant feedback. Especially when working with Haskell or something.
Re: LightTable detailed critique: Concept vs Reality
#3I agree with most of the points - documentation is well covered by IDE's, yep, I guess (don't use IDE's myself) ... finding functions is also pretty solved (personally I just use grep). But I disagree with the part about small functions and the example being contrived because real world functions aren't small and you can't just get your output directly like that. First of all, functions should be small. Anything you…
Instant feedback is what makes LightTable the great concept it is.
Re: LightTable detailed critique: Concept vs Reality
#4"Since I am a Java guy and the IDE concepts are defined as being language agnostic and that support for additional languages can be added later, I will compare the examples using Java code and Eclipse as the IDE."
And you end up proving nothing more than Java isn't a dynamic language where everything is available to you all the time without recompiling - and therefore won't really fit into to LightTable very well. The examples in LightTable are not contrived as you call them - people using dynamic programming environments work with instant feedback like this all the time.
Re: LightTable detailed critique: Concept vs Reality
#5I agree with most of the points - documentation is well covered by IDE's, yep, I guess (don't use IDE's myself) ... finding functions is also pretty solved (personally I just use grep). But I disagree with the part about small functions and the example being contrived because real world functions aren't small and you can't just get your output directly like that. First of all, functions should be small. Anything you…
As he says in the article, functions should be small but real world code isn't always written the way you'd want it to be. I think instant feedback would be great for understanding a piece of code that I didn't write but the chances are that if I don't understand it it is probably badly factored with large function sizes and mixed responsibilities all over the place.
Ultimately there will be code for which this feature is useful and code for which it is not. I can't say I wouldn't want it to be in my IDE's bag of tools though.
Re: LightTable detailed critique: Concept vs Reality
#6I had an idea of creating IDE which frees developer from organizing files and functions etc. Every class definition and functions will be stored in CodeDB. Compiler/Interpreter talks to CodeDB to resolve. Controller seats in the middle and talking to All three, developer, CodeDB and compiler. Maybe I should create concept demo/video/image of it.
Re: LightTable detailed critique: Concept vs Reality
#7"Since I am a Java guy and the IDE concepts are defined as being language agnostic and that support for additional languages can be added later, I will compare the examples using Java code and Eclipse as the IDE." And you end up proving nothing more than Java isn't a dynamic language where everything is available to you all the time without recompiling - and therefore won't really fit into to LightTable very well. Th…
I'd like to learn how a dynamic language here is different from "static" language like Scala. Care to explain?
Re: LightTable detailed critique: Concept vs Reality
#8I had an idea of creating IDE which frees developer from organizing files and functions etc. Every class definition and functions will be stored in CodeDB. Compiler/Interpreter talks to CodeDB to resolve. Controller seats in the middle and talking to All three, developer, CodeDB and compiler. Maybe I should create concept demo/video/image of it.
Smalltalk?
Re: LightTable detailed critique: Concept vs Reality
#9I agree with most of the points - documentation is well covered by IDE's, yep, I guess (don't use IDE's myself) ... finding functions is also pretty solved (personally I just use grep). But I disagree with the part about small functions and the example being contrived because real world functions aren't small and you can't just get your output directly like that. First of all, functions should be small. Anything you…
I think the author did not really get the motivation behind the LightTable concept. For those interested, it was this talk that inspired the guy(s): http://vimeo.com/36579366
It's about the instant feedback during development as opposed to the classic change/compile/reload cycle.
Especially for concepts it's important to understand the intention rather than picking on it point-by-point (which in itself, while true for the most part, seems rather pedantic to me).
Re: LightTable detailed critique: Concept vs Reality
#10This 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.