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The future is specific

chris-granger.com

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Re: The future is specific

#31

Post by ibdknox »

kamaal wrote: post #26

I don't mind if the future is specific. But its really wrong to say IDE's like Eclipse don't do one specific task well. Eclipse really makes Java programming very easy. And I can tell you minus Eclipse programming in Java would be a very frustrating experience, given the verbosity, configuration mess and XML's all over the place. Eclipse these days is advanced enough to really blur the difference between and novice a…

These were examples of extensions to make a point and not at all what we'll be focusing on. What we're making sure of is that the platform for such things exists and enables all of the things that old UI's and such don't allow.

I think the parallel to emacs is a good one and while I certainly won't say at this point that we'll be the "modern emacs", it's our hope we can come close.

Re: The future is specific

#32

Post by djKianoosh »

SudarshanP wrote: post #20
ibdknox wrote: post #2

As promised, this is the second demo complete with python! For those who can't use vimeo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osLReQSB9F0

It is so sad that Vimeo is blocked by many Indian ISPs for silly reasons. The whole Internet feels crippled. There must have been at least a dozen videos I wanted to watch today that were recklessly censored. Thanks for the youtube link. I think we need a Redundant Array of Cloud Videos.

off topic, but dont feel bad, vimeo and youtube are both blocked at DHS.

Re: The future is specific

#33

Post by mattbriggs »

ibdknox wrote: post #31
kamaal wrote: post #26

I don't mind if the future is specific. But its really wrong to say IDE's like Eclipse don't do one specific task well. Eclipse really makes Java programming very easy. And I can tell you minus Eclipse programming in Java would be a very frustrating experience, given the verbosity, configuration mess and XML's all over the place. Eclipse these days is advanced enough to really blur the difference between and novice a…

These were examples of extensions to make a point and not at all what we'll be focusing on. What we're making sure of is that the platform for such things exists and enables all of the things that old UI's and such don't allow. I think the parallel to emacs is a good one and while I certainly won't say at this point that we'll be the "modern emacs", it's our hope we can come close.

out of curiosity, is js going to be your "elisp"?

Re: The future is specific

#34

Post by pwny »

victork2 wrote: post #24
lubutu wrote: post #6

I don't quite understand what the difference is between Light Table's modes and IDEs' plugins. Domain-specific components are exactly what make IDEs 'integrated'; without them they are generalised editors. But there is absolutely no difference, as far as I can tell, between Light Table's new SQL mode and an SQL IDE plugin. I'm personally much more fond of the Unix 'tool approach', in which there are no task-specific…

Same. At least you have my upvote, for what it's worth! Light table looks to me (with all the respect due to the work of the authors) like a fad where people get all hyped up about a product. I mean there's nothing revolutionary and while looking at the video I was thinking "boy this is too confusing!". I also believe that when the project is going to have 500+ lines of code per file, the way it's done now, is going…

Maybe it's all a fad (although I personally doubt it) but I think it's a step towards a revolution in it's own little way however it turns out. Modern IDEs are extremely cluttered and (imho) messy. Light Table seems like a refreshing change of pace.

As for the rounded corners, I think it really is a matter of personal preference and they're definitely not going to affect my ability to program. Colors are just used to visual convey information seamlessly (think syntax highlighting). I think they can really be put to good use.

I do agree with you that huge "files" (the concept seems to be abstracted by the IDE) could get messy. However, I trust the Light Table guys to get it right :)

Re: The future is specific

#35

Post by kamaal »

ibdknox wrote: post #31
kamaal wrote: post #26

I don't mind if the future is specific. But its really wrong to say IDE's like Eclipse don't do one specific task well. Eclipse really makes Java programming very easy. And I can tell you minus Eclipse programming in Java would be a very frustrating experience, given the verbosity, configuration mess and XML's all over the place. Eclipse these days is advanced enough to really blur the difference between and novice a…

These were examples of extensions to make a point and not at all what we'll be focusing on. What we're making sure of is that the platform for such things exists and enables all of the things that old UI's and such don't allow. I think the parallel to emacs is a good one and while I certainly won't say at this point that we'll be the "modern emacs", it's our hope we can come close.

I think from the discussions and other threads what I infer is that we need a total re-look at the concept of an editor, Your way actually looks good. Except that we need to retain the 'Emacs infrastructure'.

We need to really keep Lisp as the extension language.

I think what we need is Light Table with something like this : http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/568774734/emacsy-an-embe...

You have to develop Light Table ON the Emacs OS!

Re: The future is specific

#36

Post by ibdknox »

kamaal wrote: post #35
ibdknox wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These were examples of extensions to make a point and not at all what we'll be focusing on. What we're making sure of is that the platform for such things exists and enables all of the things that old UI's and such don't allow. I think the parallel to emacs is a good one and while I certainly won't say at this point that we'll be the "modern emacs", it's our hope we can come close.

I think from the discussions and other threads what I infer is that we need a total re-look at the concept of an editor, Your way actually looks good. Except that we need to retain the 'Emacs infrastructure'. We need to really keep Lisp as the extension language. I think what we need is Light Table with something like this : http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/568774734/emacsy-an-embe... You have to develop Light Tab…

Lisp is the extension language :) Everything so far is Clojure + ClojureScript with the language backends written in the language they support (python in python and so on)

Re: The future is specific

#37

Post by chrismcbride »

kamaal wrote: post #26

I don't mind if the future is specific. But its really wrong to say IDE's like Eclipse don't do one specific task well. Eclipse really makes Java programming very easy. And I can tell you minus Eclipse programming in Java would be a very frustrating experience, given the verbosity, configuration mess and XML's all over the place. Eclipse these days is advanced enough to really blur the difference between and novice a…

I think Light Tables target is dynamic languages, which the current crop of IDEs dont have great support for.

Re: The future is specific

#38

Post by DanI-S »

moe wrote: post #30
DasIch wrote: post #10

The first time I heard about Light Table I was rather critical but this begins to look like something that could really replace vim for me. This is rather surprising given my general distaste of IDEs.

Same here. As much as I like vim - it remains software from the stone age and it seems absurd that our main work interface (editor and shell) still consists of an emulated 1980s text-mode terminal. LightTable looks like a major step in the right direction. I think the best indicator for success will be when the vim/emacs-diehards start porting their respective shortcuts and functionality over. I could very well see t…

The thing that draws me to Vim, really, is the extensibility. There's a steep learning curve to creating a powerful Vim extension, but there are still a huge number of them. Imagine if Light Table can make editor extension something you can do per project!

I probably have a unique preferred layout of Vim splits and tabs that I use for each codebase I work with. Being able to take this further, telling the editor which parts of code are significant and in which ways they go together, I'd have so much less mental overhead.

I love the idea that I could navigate our current codebase by endpoint, jumping to the account management portion of our API, automatically having the relevant back-end code and unit tests on-screen, along with benchmark info and test results. Since we adhere to general conventions at least within a project, there's no reason this can't be done.

Re: The future is specific

#39

Post by inportb »

kamaal wrote: post #26

I don't mind if the future is specific. But its really wrong to say IDE's like Eclipse don't do one specific task well. Eclipse really makes Java programming very easy. And I can tell you minus Eclipse programming in Java would be a very frustrating experience, given the verbosity, configuration mess and XML's all over the place. Eclipse these days is advanced enough to really blur the difference between and novice a…

> minus Eclipse programming in Java would be a very frustrating experience

I'm not sure about that... Eclipse gets fatter and slower with each release. Of course, I still use it because Google really wants Android developers to do so. In my opinion, the most frustrating thing about using Eclipse for Android work is that it crashes every time I try to export a package, unless I close every open file and restart Eclipse before trying. (the problem is mitigated by disabling automatic builds)

I guess that's because Eclipse runs on Java and Java is wasteful. It would be really nice if we could have a "native" equivalent of Eclipse, with less bloat.

Re: The future is specific

#40

Post by simonb »

bnegreve wrote: post #13

Being specific is not a feature, this is what you do when you have no other way to solve a problem. The ambitious challenge raised by Light Table was to generalize Bret Victor's ideas to general programming, if they are unable to do this, I'll stick to my IDE.

It generalizes them the lisp way: by building machines that build machines.
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