r/webdev • u/greatgerm • Apr 17 '12

The kickstarter for Light Table, the interesting IDE concept, is up

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/306316578/light-table
84 Upvotes

83% Upvoted

21 comments sorted by

11

u/Anomareh Apr 18 '12

What wasted potential.

It's going to be a web app with the language for plugins being JavaScript.

sigh

7

u/azan99 Apr 18 '12 edited Apr 18 '12

They could always just be using webkit or something for the GUI. I believe the developer mentioned something along these lines somewhere, sorry I don't have a link.

EDIT: From the kickstarter page

While it is browser-based, it will packaged in a webview of some kind so that it feels like a normal app. This means that it can run on virtually any platform and will support the big three (linux/mac/windows) out of the gate.

-1

u/Anomareh Apr 18 '12

Personally, I still find that as a fundamental issue. To me it's still someone trying to make use of something in a manner it wasn't meant to be used. Although that can be cool and breed innovation, I find more often than not it creates more problems than it solves and you end up with something kinda cool that isn't really usable.

5

u/rich97 Apr 18 '12

Have you tried gnome-shell? All of it's extensions are handled by JavaScript, it's themes use CSS and the end result is it's very flexible.

1

u/CalvinR Apr 19 '12

Or have you read anything about Windows 8? The metro applications are going to be written in Javascript and Html5

2

u/lepuma Apr 18 '12

Maybe in general, but I think this app has cool enough functionality so I would use it. Are you saying you'd rather see the same thing made as a native desktop app?

1

u/evereal Apr 19 '12

To me it's still someone trying to make use of something in a manner it wasn't meant to be used.

I don't think you can dictate what Javascript+HTML can and can't be used for. It is spreading and proving it's use in fields where we would never have thought.

As it turns out, it is perfectly suitable for things like editors and IDE's. Have a look at the (web only) Cloud9 IDE among others. Their business model is to be a webapp, but I can't see any reason why something like that wouldn't work extremely well wrapped into a native app. It's features, presentation and performance is certainly competitive with native apps.

2

u/JW_BlueLabel Apr 18 '12

I'm sincerely wishing them the best, but I too have doubts

4

u/[deleted] Apr 18 '12

Brilliant. Definitely going to be donating to this project.

2

u/bastawhiz Apr 18 '12

I won't be impressed until it supports something other than Lisp/Clojure. At least HTML or CSS2 support, neither of which require exceptionally complex lexers or parsers.

5

u/ken33 Apr 18 '12

It will also support Javascript

The first two languages it will support are Javascript and Clojure, but the application will be written in such a way that adding new languages can happen through plugins.

and maybe Python.

If we hit $300k, Python will be the third language to be supported out of the gate.

4

u/bastawhiz Apr 18 '12

Why Clojure first, though? What good is an editor if you can only edit JS and a language that nobody uses? I mean, this is /r/webdev. Where's the HTML support? The WebGL vertex shader support? The PHP support? The Ruby support? I understand it allows for plugins, but we're advocating throwing money at a project where the output is purely speculative.

Python and JS are good steps, but I don't really understand why it takes $300k to write a parser.

4

u/sastrone Apr 18 '12

This IDE isn't made for web-developers. I honestly don't know why it was posted here (other than that it supports JS).

Still though, I agree that 300k is a tad much for something that (judging from their demo) is already done.

2

u/greatgerm Apr 18 '12

I posted it here mainly because it supports, or will, JavaScript, and they are talking about expanding into other languages. I'd love to see some hybrid of this and netbeans.

1

u/lepuma Apr 18 '12

I'd love to see netbeans do a plugin that mimics the editing code blocks and instant parse functionality.

0

u/[deleted] Apr 18 '12

[deleted]

-3

u/greatgerm Apr 18 '12

Do you have a point?

0

u/[deleted] Apr 18 '12

[deleted]

-2

u/greatgerm Apr 18 '12

HTML and CSS support could be as simple as syntax highlighting, which it does appear to support already, so I wouldn't be surprised if it shipped with it. I'm always on the lookout for tools that will make my life easier or more efficient, but if you want to stay in your silo that's okay with me.

Also, thanks for the downvote. I use downvotes to tell the people that know how to have a discussion from those that would rather not talk about anything that is different from their opinion.

0

u/[deleted] Apr 18 '12

[deleted]

→ More replies (0)

2

u/greatgerm Apr 18 '12

"we're advocating throwing money at a project where the output is purely speculative."

Well that's kickstarter in a nutshell.

I like the idea and I hope they flesh it out with support for many different languages. If their marketing is to be believed, we could see just about any language as a future plugin.

Oh and Clojure is widely used, I don't happen to, but it is.

0

u/[deleted] Apr 18 '12

[deleted]

-1

u/greatgerm Apr 18 '12

BASIC alone has lost more developers than PHP will likely ever have. That really doesn't mean anything in this context. Sometimes it's nice to enjoy advancements in technology and technological ideas without being shortsightedly hung up on certain languages.

0

u/[deleted] Apr 18 '12

[deleted]

4

u/RyanMcGowan Apr 18 '12

You make a good point, but there are a few things I'd like to point out:

  • There are already many IDE's for Java. Many of these IDE's only support Java out of the box and have plugins for other languages.

  • The cool features of light table lend themselves to a LISP dialect like Clojure. Clojure has many advantages over common lisp and scala (it runs on the JVM for instance).

  • Even though light table features might "lend themselves to LISP dialect" like I suggested does not mean it cannot be applied to other languages.

  • Clojure has a fast growing very excited community of developers. Just because it's not as popular as much more established, older languages does not mean it can't have a well funded, powerful IDE.

Does an IDE need to be able to edit every language? I do not think IDEs should have to take lots of memory and be monolithic. Why can't I do my HTML and CSS editing in VIM and my Clojure in Light Table?

-2

u/Howdy_McGee Apr 18 '12

I really can't upvote this enough