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Luna 1.0 Beta is out

luna-lang.org

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Re: Luna 1.0 Beta is out

#111

Post by alexchamberlain »

kustosz wrote: post #71
wyqydsyq wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the concept of Luna and think the project itself was great, However I feel you guys have chosen a poor approach to distributing it. ① I feel it would have been far better to implement the studio as an Atom plugin rather than a fork of Atom ② I feel having the compiler only available bundled into the studio is a mistake, there should be a pure CLI interface with minimal external dependencies so that people can…

Thank you for the feedback! To answer your concerns: 1. Studio is actually a set of plugins for Atom, not a fork. It's just that we are shipping an Atom binary and make sure that it can work alongside a standard Atom installation, for a smoother experience. We understand how many people use Atom for their daily work and we'd rather not mess with that. 2. That's a perfectly valid point! We'll prepare a CLI distributio…

I'd rather not be forced to use Atom...

Re: Luna 1.0 Beta is out

#112

Post by wdanilo »

StreamBright wrote: post #109

> Powerful engine. Limitless. I think at very least it is limited by the known universe. :)

If we think about a programming language then it's universe is what a program can actually do. Luna is a general purpose, real programming language. If you are able to code something in C, you should be able to do it in Luna. From this perspective, Luna is "limitless". In contrast to DSLs or almost every other visual programming language Luna is not limited by it's design. However, if such sentence is a real issue for you or other people, we would change it! What do you think? :)

Re: Luna 1.0 Beta is out

#113

Post by wdanilo »

arnioxux wrote: post #63
kustosz wrote: post #2

Hi, I'm one of Luna founders, I'll be happy to answer any questions! :)

Equivalent text and graph representation is the killer feature. I previously looked at stuff like https://flowhub.io/ide/ which is a dataflow language spec and editor. Specifically the js version https://noflojs.org/example/ for compiling graphs into js for some canvas image pipeline work. Each component has an underlying text representation that you can edit like you guys. But that representation isn't code. It's ju…

arnioxux, thanks for sharing your thoughts here! I completely agree, that double representation is the killing feature of Luna. Personally, I do not believe we can progress in the domain of software design by removing the textual form. Because of that, we have designed Luna to be textual-visual, so tightly integrated, it is just one thing. For example, you can write any expression above our nodes, let it be `2+2` or `2+` (a function which will let you connect the missing argument to your node!).

However, I do not agree with your point that people don't want to code with mouse. Actually, connecting high level components visually, tweaking their parameters (with sliders, color choosers and other widgets) and observing how it affects the result you got is MUCH faster than writing code. There is of course some "base level". If you code something low-level it is much better to use code then. Where this "base level" is, depends on you and your preferences.

I would love to hear more from you after you try Luna and try to create something more complex in it! :)

Re: Luna 1.0 Beta is out

#114

Post by akavel »

Wooohooo, I'm super happy and excited that you made it!!! Was already losing hope, and now what an awesome surprise! :) Huge congratulations, getting from prototype to shipping is hard, and you know it well enough :) Hope I'll have a chance to dabble with it ASAP!

By the way, have you sent a notification email to your alpha subscribers? I don't seem to have gotten anything in my inbox... only found via HN (just when I was starting to ponder if I should try harder to overcome this addiction...)

Hm, and maybe are you planning some kind of release party or something at your office or somewhere in Kraków? :) Or did you already have one? :)

Re: Luna 1.0 Beta is out

#115

Post by wdanilo »

anigbrowl wrote: post #81
kirillseva wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

would you care to name that favorite software that has reoriented itself towards Ruby? Curious to learn more

iirc it's flowstone DSP, last time I looked there was still a free version though it's not an open source project. Would recommend to anyone as an example of good UI in this area

@anigbrowl I do not know flowstone DSP, but I see you were thinking much about GUI / nodes design. This is one of the topics I'm passionate about and I we want to make Luna the most powerful visual language available. I would love to chat with you about node design and your ideas. If you think it's interesting, I've just created a topic on our forum for this – I would love to read and discuss your thoughts there! https://discuss.luna-lang.org/t/nodes-design-discussion/69

Re: Luna 1.0 Beta is out

#116

Post by wdanilo »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #29
wdanilo wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bret Victor's ideas are a very strong inspiration regarding where graphical interfaces could expand in the future. We strongly agree with his principle, that people need an immediate connection with data they are working on. This principle is one of two foundations on which Luna was actually built. We have described our thoughts in detail in our blog post here: https://medium.com/@luna_language/luna-the-visual-way-to…

Bret Victor has written about these kinds of languages before, mainly in his "Drawing Dynamic Visualizations" notes ( http://worrydream.com/DrawingDynamicVisualizationsTalkAddend... , talking about what he just presented): > Is this "visual programming"? No. The term "visual programming" has had a well-established definition for several decades, and this tool is not that. > A "visual programming language" provides gr…

@seanmcdirmid We are not yet there, but we develop Luna to target EXACTLY these use cases - program modification AND very direct data manipulation. We see Luna as an unified platform for building rich DSL's. An example of such rich DSL is what Bret Victor demonstrated in his talk. You can read more about rich DSL's and what Luna is meant to be in our blog post here: https://medium.com/@luna_language/luna-the-visual-way-to-cre...

Regarding your thoughts, Luna is a fusion of both approaches. When you create and connect nodes, you are manipulating the program structure - you define how data flows between components. However, every node has the ability to display an interactive results visualization and input data widgets. Basically these visualizations and widgets allow you to work directly with data – you can create canvas visualization which let you paint on it, you can create a 3D scene visualization which would allow you to not only inspect 3D scenes but also modify them etc. These visualizations can be displayed below nodes or can be detached to be separate windows and are defined as HTML/js snippets.

Does it make sense to you?

Re: Luna 1.0 Beta is out

#117

Post by wdanilo »

bsaul wrote: post #94
wdanilo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@bsaul, video tutorials are a very interesting idea. In the first release, however, we have incorporated few toy-projects and interactive tutorial, which guides you step by step inside the product. Do you think video tutorials are better to understand / follow than examples or interactive tutorials ?

I wasn't thinking of a tutorial, but a demo. it's a bit different. The purpose isn't to teach me how to use the tool, but to understand and see what it will look like and what i'll be able to do once / if i ever learn to use it properly. Then maybe i'll install the software, then i'll go to the tutorials (in that order).

@bsaul, oh I understand. I think we are not there yet. We do not have many ready use cases built in Luna. We will be working with our community to use Luna in real projects / create interesting examples. Then we would build a video showing Luna possibilities.

Right now think about Luna like about a new programming language with rich, visual representation and a very limited set of available libraries. If you are processing data that could be visualized or you are inspecting data, looking for the best way to modify / understand it - Luna could be the tool you are looking for.

I strongly encourage you to play with Luna, see example demo scenes and try to create something from your field of expertise. We would love to help you do it! Use our chat / forum if you have questions / problems. I would be more than happy to later create a video showing your system in work to demonstrate what Luna is suitable for! :)

What do you think about it? :)

Re: Luna 1.0 Beta is out

#118

Post by wdanilo »

bane wrote: post #106
kustosz wrote: post #2

Hi, I'm one of Luna founders, I'll be happy to answer any questions! :)

I've worked with a few visual dataflow language tools like this in the past, and there's definitely an important place for this kind tools in many environments -- this is beautiful work! I haven't had a chance to check it out yet, but just want to throw in some support. One of the problems I've seen with these tools in the past is that they tend to live in very niche places and not get much public exposure. I'm very…

@bane, thank you for your comment. It is very important to us to work with people who already have experience with visual languages, so please, stay in touch with us and use our forum / chat to tell us about your ideas! We would love to help you create things with Luna!

Your sentence about visual languages that tend to live in a very niche places is a VERY important topic to me. In fact I think I've got a very crisp answer why it is happening:

1) Visual languages are mostly not open and free.

2) Most visual languages are designed for a very specific domain use cases (like sound processing, 3d graphics, etc). People are afraid of limitations! Unless I'm 100% sure that I'm working exactly in this niche, if I want to process data / create software I would never choose a domain specific visual language, because the probability I'll hit its limitations are too high to take the risk. This is why we have developed Luna as a real programming language, so literally if you are able to do anything in C, you should be able to do it in Luna!

3) Almost every visual language is designed just as components you can connect. That's it, they are not tightly integrated with textual representation. This often makes working in these languages tedious - you have to create many nodes to achive what you can within a single line. In Luna, however, you can use any expression to create node. You can for example create node `(2 + _).sqrt`. You will get a node, which will allow you to connect one input and send data to the missing place in expression. It allows you to keep your graph clean and small.

Moreover, we have described in detail why current visual languages fail to succeed in our blog post here: https://medium.com/@luna_language/luna-the-visual-way-to-cre...

What do you think about it?

Re: Luna 1.0 Beta is out

#119

Post by wdanilo »

everdev wrote: post #6
kustosz wrote: post #2

Hi, I'm one of Luna founders, I'll be happy to answer any questions! :)

Just want to say kudos for making design a priority from the start. Developers often underestimate how important design is to ease of use. Looks fantastic and excited to see where the project goes.

@everdev, thank you Luna is a visual language. It is important for us. How it looks like, how it behaves, how you feel with it, how fast you can work in it - these are the things which are most important when designing Luna. In fact, because of these things we have designed a new language instead of using existing one - then we would have to sacrifice some visual elements / behaviors and we do not want to do it.

We are small team, please support us as much as you can! If you want to see Luna succeed, help us do it by contributing to the project - both ideas as well as help with its development are very welcome! And I promise, we will do what we can to make Luna the most powerful and beautiful visual language ever created :)

Re: Luna 1.0 Beta is out

#120

Post by wdanilo »

alexchamberlain wrote: post #111
kustosz wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the feedback! To answer your concerns: 1. Studio is actually a set of plugins for Atom, not a fork. It's just that we are shipping an Atom binary and make sure that it can work alongside a standard Atom installation, for a smoother experience. We understand how many people use Atom for their daily work and we'd rather not mess with that. 2. That's a perfectly valid point! We'll prepare a CLI distributio…

I'd rather not be forced to use Atom...

@alexchamberlain Luna is not strongly connected to Atom. In fact, Luna gui runs in HTML and you are able to run it in your browser without Atom right now. However, we do not officially support it. We have chosen Atom just to bring a decent text editor to Luna Studio - thats it. We are planning to release web-based Luna version with some kind of web-text-editor in the future. It is not our priority right now (we want to focus on improving performance and delivering more rich data manipulators), however if you think you could help us with it, we would love to support it as much as we can!

What do you think about it?

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