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Light Table is in YCS12

chris-granger.com

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Re: Light Table is in YCS12

#91

Post by Cushman »

batista wrote: post #88
ShardPhoenix wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I sort-of agree with your point, I think you're being unnecessarily hostile here.

I might come of a little hostile yes. I dislike the cult aspect of the whole story, that is. And I think the "ViaWeb/Lisp -> super programming capabilities over mere mortals -> Yahoo millions" thing that started the whole cult worship is both wrong and flawed (e.g statistically insignificant to prove anything).

I will agree with that the idea that the cult of Lisp started because Viaweb proved that super programming capabilities are better than mere mortals is both wrong and flawed.

Re: Light Table is in YCS12

#92

Post by BrandonM »

batista wrote: post #88
ShardPhoenix wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I sort-of agree with your point, I think you're being unnecessarily hostile here.

I might come of a little hostile yes. I dislike the cult aspect of the whole story, that is. And I think the "ViaWeb/Lisp -> super programming capabilities over mere mortals -> Yahoo millions" thing that started the whole cult worship is both wrong and flawed (e.g statistically insignificant to prove anything).

But why does it anger you so much?

Besides, you seem to be ignoring that ViaWeb was built before there were ubiquitous open source libraries for practically everything. My guess is that they basically had to write the whole server/application/persistence/security/payment stack themselves from scratch. Considering that they were able to build it all with a handful (2-4?) of programmers and to beat out competition that had a head start and a much higher head count, I would wager that Lisp had at least a little something to do with it.

Re: Light Table is in YCS12

#93

Post by krakensden »

1234the1234 wrote: post #78
jaredsohn wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure that the GP just made a joke that at least didn't work for you. The GP is likely referring to this sentiment: "I started to realize that Sublime Text seemed to be everything many of us had hoped for in Textmate 2, but in software that was available today in a polished, fully functional version, not a just a rather buggy alpha preview." -- http://casperfabricius.com/site/2012/01/24/my-first-week-wit...

If only all these attempts at vim clones were instead spent on vim.

Sublime Text is most definitely not a vim clone. It may have a vi-ish mode, but it's fairly weak. Sublime Text is in the TextMate/Notepad++ space.

Re: Light Table is in YCS12

#94

Post by 1234the1234 »

krakensden wrote: post #93
1234the1234 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only all these attempts at vim clones were instead spent on vim.

Sublime Text is most definitely not a vim clone. It may have a vi-ish mode, but it's fairly weak. Sublime Text is in the TextMate/Notepad++ space.

Wait did you just say that TextMate wasn't based on vim?

Re: Light Table is in YCS12

#95

Post by jgeralnik »

gaius wrote: post #81
ibdknox wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're sticking with our goal on Kickstarter - if we hit 300k we'll definitely do it. There's a decent chance we will either way though.

Thanks for the reply :-) Another question if I may: YC funding amounts to $5k - what difference will that drop in the ocean make?

In this case YC is not about the funding but about the support and connections.

Re: Light Table is in YCS12

#96

Post by batista »

Cushman wrote: post #90
batista wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There are a lot of ways to read the situation, but my favorite is that Light Table makes sense purely as a strategic acquisition for YC; there are enough YC companies using the languages Light Table targets that, should it yield magical productivity gains, the knock-on effects from being able to get their developers early access and input would be enormous. If they wind up changing the future of software development…

Wow, man. Did a Lisp eat your cat or something? Maybe you didn't, but a lot of people saw the Light Table demo and thought, "If that thing works right it looks like it might cut my workload in half." This would be the reason (you may have heard) they've raised a few hundred thousand in pre-orders in addition to funding from the most prominent startup accelerator in tech. Okay, so you don't buy the hype. Bully for you…

>Wow, man. Did a Lisp eat your cat or something?

No, I even like it. It just didn't make my cat 2x more productive as a programmer, which is what I find a BS statement coming from many Lisp proponents...

>Maybe you didn't, but a lot of people saw the Light Table demo and thought, "If that thing works right it looks like it might cut my workload in half." This would be the reason (you may have heard) they've raised a few hundred thousand in pre-orders in addition to funding from the most prominent startup accelerator in tech.

I like the LT demo. I don't think in the least it will cut my workload in half --those that think so are IMNSHO delluded. At best it will make certain operations easier to carry out, but most of them will be marginal to my efficiency. Editing environment is not the bottleneck to my coding, thinking is. That's why thousands of programmers work just fine with crude old Vim and not something like a Smalltalk editor or a Lisp Machine (or even Emacs or VS or Eclipse). A competent programmer can get by even with vi or Notepad++, with only small loss of productivity.

>Okay, so you don't buy the hype. Bully for you. But "a really lame conspiracy theory"? Presumably, not only would Viaweb have been as dominant were it written in C, but 37signals would have been more successful sticking with PHP instead of wasting time writing Rails, and if all your Emacs users switched to using Notepad, it wouldn't cost the company any money. That sounds pretty realistic.

Actually there were programmers AS succesful at the time as ViaWeb that were INDEED writing in C. Case in point, Yahoo, the company that bought ViaWeb in the first place, used C. Later switched to PHP IIRC.

But, crucial to my actual point was the use of the world "marginal". C to Ruby might make a difference. Ruby to Lisp not so much (it could even be adverse, because of the lack of mature web frameworks and libs that Ruby has plently).

And certainly Emacs to LT, even less so.

Re: Light Table is in YCS12

#97

Post by batista »

BrandonM wrote: post #92
batista wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might come of a little hostile yes. I dislike the cult aspect of the whole story, that is. And I think the "ViaWeb/Lisp -> super programming capabilities over mere mortals -> Yahoo millions" thing that started the whole cult worship is both wrong and flawed (e.g statistically insignificant to prove anything).

But why does it anger you so much? Besides, you seem to be ignoring that ViaWeb was built before there were ubiquitous open source libraries for practically everything. My guess is that they basically had to write the whole server/application/persistence/security/payment stack themselves from scratch. Considering that they were able to build it all with a handful (2-4?) of programmers and to beat out competition that…

>But why does it anger you so much?

So much? I just made a comment, it's not like I'm running around foaming at the mouth, is it?

>Besides, you seem to be ignoring that ViaWeb was built before there were ubiquitous open source libraries for practically everything. My guess is that they basically had to write the whole server/application/persistence/security/payment stack themselves from scratch. Considering that they were able to build it all with a handful (2-4?) of programmers and to beat out competition that had a head start and a much higher head count, I would wager that Lisp had at least a little something to do with it.

I agree. But wouldn't something like Smalltalk be equally good for the same purpose? Or Perl?

Re: Light Table is in YCS12

#98

Post by Cushman »

batista wrote: post #96
Cushman wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, man. Did a Lisp eat your cat or something? Maybe you didn't, but a lot of people saw the Light Table demo and thought, "If that thing works right it looks like it might cut my workload in half." This would be the reason (you may have heard) they've raised a few hundred thousand in pre-orders in addition to funding from the most prominent startup accelerator in tech. Okay, so you don't buy the hype. Bully for you…

> Wow, man. Did a Lisp eat your cat or something? No, I even like it. It just didn't make my cat 2x more productive as a programmer, which is what I find a BS statement coming from many Lisp proponents... > Maybe you didn't, but a lot of people saw the Light Table demo and thought, "If that thing works right it looks like it might cut my workload in half." This would be the reason (you may have heard) they've raised…

So IDEs don't, can't, make programmers more productive enough to offset the cost of developing the IDE itself?

I mean, you can think that. But it ain't exactly Moon Science to think otherwise.

Re: Light Table is in YCS12

#99

Post by levesque »

esmevane wrote: post #61
levesque wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I won't back them based on a maybe. We'll talk again when python support becomes more than a teaser :)

Wouldn't you think of this as slightly contrary to the purpose of backing a Kickstarter project? What I mean is, say the project had been set at 300k and python was one of the base supported languages. That would actually be no different than it is now, except that now the software itself is already guaranteed(1). Also, the python inclusion is certainly on the roadmap if it's mentioned before the project has been fun…

When backing a kickstarter, I pay for what is advertised and described. If they make the hard deadline, they will do it. If not, I'll get my money back. There is no such guarantee for Python support. I fund them, maybe I'll get Python support.

Re: Light Table is in YCS12

#100

Post by AlexHamilton »

AhtiK wrote: post #82
tikhonj wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are people who can't or won't use GPL code in their own projects our use GPL libraries, but I've never heard of anyone not using a program (rather than the code) because of a GPL license. For a project like this, the GPL makes the most sense: an IDE needs people who use it and people who contribute to the core project much more than it needs people who use its code in proprietary projects of their own.

Eventually every successful IDE becomes extensible. Up to that point GPL is perfectly fine. As soon as IDE provides extensibility one starts having problems with GPL and it's viral nature with linking. GPL is forcing IDE into a "sandbox" where the whole distro must be GPL-compatible at the point of distribution. The workaround is often with the expense of user experience where one has to separately install extensions…

The Mozilla Public License v2 is a good compromise, as it is less aggressive than the GPL on links (it operates at the file level)
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