Light Table reaches 0.1.0

http://www.chris-granger.com/2012/08/17/light-table-reaches-010/

by Mariel • 14 years ago

297 95 14 years ago

shadowfiend2• 14 years ago

It's awesome how similar some of this looks to Smalltalk IDEs, with some bonus improvements. It's true that it's high time someone picked up the baton on the concepts they pushed, and I'm pumped to see that Light Table is picking up that baton and running with it to present even more interesting possibilities.

norswap• 14 years ago

I hope you are wrong, because I find Smalltalk IDEs infuriating. Mostly I dislike the fact I have to either make 10 click to reach any code I want to see, or manage a large number of annoying windows to keep track of what I'm working on.

tdrgabi• 14 years ago

I don't know why you're downvoted. I think you're right.

There are lots of windows you have to drag around all the time and click in many places to get to some code.

shadowfiend2• 14 years ago

More importantly I think than some of the other responses, as I said, Light Table is “picking up that baton and running with it to present even more interesting possibilities”. Taking strong inspiration from some features in Smalltalk IDEs is different from building a Smalltalk-style IDE for Clojure. I see inspiration here, but not straight copying per se.

e12e2• 14 years ago

I agree. One of Smalltalk's (the system) greatest assets is that it integrates fantastically with a GUI/mouse input. However, I also find that one of its biggest problems.

I've pretty much stopped using the mouse for input -- due to RSI -- and I don't care much for trackballs etc. I think the next five years might vindicate Smalltalk a bit as I expect touch interfaces to keep rising -- both touch in the sense of touching with your finger(s) as well as proper "pen" input (which is much better for drawing anyway).

However, for typing -- I still prefer vim -- and at least someone is toying with that idea in Pharo:

http://forum.world.st/ANN-Vim-Shortcuts-for-Nautilus-Proof-o...

jurre• 14 years ago

I felt the exact same way using the Seaside IDE, but I only used it for a day, maybe it just takes some getting used to?

airlocksoftware5• 14 years ago

Chris, if you're around, you mentioned that you're now building Light Table in Light Table. Does this include the front end Clojurescript? Because I would love to move my Clojure / Clojurescript project over to LT if that's possible.

ibdknox5• 14 years ago

It does indeed, but we punted on including CLJS in this release because we didn't have enough time to test it. It should make it into the next release though :)

airlocksoftware5• 14 years ago

Very cool. I look forward to it. I'm just poking around this release now, and it's great to see the vision you had in the original video coming together. Not to rush you or anything, but I was wondering how the plugin API was coming along. Is that something that we'll get to play with anytime soon, or will that be something that comes with the final release next year?

mej10• 14 years ago

Isn't it going to be open sourced at some point? Why not just let people get at your dev branches or at least provide builds for them

Also, keep up the awesome work!

batista3• 14 years ago

The text rendering looks extremely nice. Is this Java/Swing based, or does it use something else?

vecinu3• 14 years ago

I'm not sure if Chris or any of you guys have seen this video but it is exactly what Light Table is about to become (perhaps more) and that makes me very excited.

http://vimeo.com/36579366

icey• 14 years ago

Here's the blog post where Chris first talked about Light Table (before it was called Light Table) http://www.chris-granger.com/2012/02/26/connecting-to-your-c...

vecinu3• 14 years ago

Oh my. After re-reading that blog post I remember seeing it on HN before. My apologies.

tree_of_item• 14 years ago

Chris started work on Light Table _because_ of that video. So be excited :)

AYBABTME• 14 years ago

I was at this conference (CUSEC 2012[1]), and he (Bret) gave a truly awesome lecture.

Also it was my first conference ever, so it's even better.

[1] Canadian University Software Engineering Conference, in Montreal.

vecinu3• 14 years ago

I managed to make it to CUSEC 2011 but not 2012. Looks like I missed some really great presentations. It's unfortunate when this conference is in another province.

rjsamson• 14 years ago

I'm really impressed with how this is coming along. The UI has a great feel to it. Playing with LT Playground makes me want to go back and give Clojure another shot. Very cool!

danielweber• 14 years ago

Constructive criticism: pretend that someone hasn't head of Light Table before. Have a one-sentence description near the top that links to a longer description. (Clicking on "Light Table Playground" takes me a something that includes the features you are working on for Light Box.)

ibdknox5• 14 years ago

done. Thanks for the suggestion!

(Side note, the real thing is called "Light Table" too, no light boxes here :)

ezy2• 14 years ago

The live evaluation is nice, but seems a little limited. If I have:

  (defn my-add [a b]
    (+ a b))
  (my-add 3 45)
  (my-add 1 2)

Only the "1 2" version is followed into "my-add". Is there anyway to force it to look at "3 45" other than commenting out "1 2"?

I greatly prefer the idea of showing the value propagation explicitly as you click on things. For example, using lines and arrows to show that this came from there and that came from here.

simcop2387• 14 years ago

In this case I suspect it's dealing with compiler optimizations. The first one is being optimized out since it produces no side effects and the return isn't used anywhere. How to work around this I have no idea.

johnmw• 14 years ago

I'm not sure if this is what you want, but you can turn live evaluation off with Ctrl/Cmd-l and then evaluate the individual line you are interested in with Shift-Enter.

1st1• 14 years ago

When are you guys planning to add python support? BTW, will it be python 3 or 2?

rbanffy2• 14 years ago

Looks remarkable! Can't wait to try it.

i_cannot_hack2• 14 years ago

I don't have a github account, but since I noticed the creator reads the comments here I'll report some quick bugs I found:

1. Closing parentheses do not work in table mode, the key combination for ")" on my Swedish keyboard produces a "(" instead. (this has already been reported on github)

2. When I was asked to type in "(+ 4 5)" in the scratch during the tutorial, pressing the spacebar without any modifier keys did not register as a keypress. I had to press shift+spacebar to separate the numbers and complete the task.

3. The window displaying all shortcuts (accessed from the bottom right corner) cannot be closed. I had to restart Light Table for it to disappear so that I could continue coding.

ibdknox5• 14 years ago

1. yeah, I didn't think about international keyboards. I'll have to come up with something there.

2. just pushed a fix for that

3. Click anywhere outside the box and it'll close. I'll make that more explicit :)

i_cannot_hack2• 14 years ago

Yeah, I realized I had probably missed something when it came to closing the window. Strange how I never managed to click outside the box, considering how much else I tried (pressing esc, clicking inside the box, opening the menu, etc.) :)

But I forgot to say how much I love the editor already. Can't wait for the final version!

DigitalJack• 14 years ago

I love this. Chris Granger is officially one of my heroes.

One quick suggestion: on the first time start up of the app, it goes through a brief explanation of the various parts. It might seem obvious to most, but I think it would make it a little nicer if the dialog that says "The instarepl is an area where you can write code..." had an arrow shape, or an arrow in the box pointing toward the repl.

Same for the dialog talking about the output area.

It's not so much that it's confusing, it's just an unfamiliar interface, and an arrow would be reassuring that what I thought was the repl was really indeed the repl.

pyoung• 14 years ago

Maybe add '(YC S12)' in the title? I know you were working on this before YC, but these are the kinds of things I like to see get supported.

mvip• 14 years ago

Go Chris and Rob!

FrojoS• 14 years ago

Looks cool! When I first saw it I thought you where this guy: Bret Victor - Inventing on Principle http://vimeo.com/36579366

Planing to support Octave/Matlab at some point?

eranation4• 14 years ago

It's simply great. Any estimates when will the Python module come out?

neutronicus2• 14 years ago

Any plans for emacs keybindings?

airlocksoftware5• 14 years ago

I'm pretty sure it has been mentioned before that yes, you'll be able to use emacs keybindings. The editing surface is based on CodeMirror http://codemirror.net/, which is very customizable.

mrkrwtsn2• 14 years ago

The problem right now is that the editor runs in a browser and so the shortcuts for emacs conflict.

Why the fuck should a text editor be running in a browser?

techtalsky• 14 years ago

A lot of people are mentioning Python support. I just wanted to put in my vote that Python support will be the thing that gets me to download and try this. It looks awesome but it'll be so much easier for me to relate to if there's a supported language I'm already productive in. I'd like to learn some lisp-likes, but learning a new and innovative IDE at the same time is a bit more to bite off than I have for at one time.

Swizec• 14 years ago

What languages are supported right now? I keep forgetting and all the images are showing clojure.

Anyone know if there's any plans for haskell?

tsumnia• 14 years ago

I believe the first supported languages will be Clojure and Javascript, followed by Python.

botj• 14 years ago

Python is not cool enough for this :) I want Ruby support!!

QuantumGuy• 14 years ago

Python is a great language and anything that Ruby can do Python can do as well.

eranation4• 14 years ago

They promised on kickstarter to have Python the 3rd language if they reach the 300K goal. (they reached it).

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ibdknox/light-table

hndl• 14 years ago

Anyone using this for "real world" development? How does this compare with something you were previously using?

fdb• 14 years ago

If you're on Mountain Lion, Gatekeeper won't open the launcher, complaining it isn't signed.

The best way around this without touching your security settings is to right-click the launcher and selecting "Open".

mck-• 14 years ago

I love this thing, ever since you've announced it. Just wondering if it would eventually support Common Lisp?

tocomment• 14 years ago

So how would I use light table in building a django app? I'm trying to envision some real world use cases for myself.

boris007• 14 years ago

I have created a Propster fan tip jar for Light Table. When it collects at least $5, Chris will be contact and will get the money.

snprbob86• 14 years ago

Chris: I know you're a vim guy, so I know you'll be doing vim bindings eventually. I also know that vim emulation modes are always incomplete. I'd like to offer my services as a vim-mode tester. I vow to provide extremely robust feedback. I'm willing to offer this service for free, so that I can ensure Light Table's vim subset is a superset of my brain's vim subset ;-)

JulianWasTaken• 14 years ago

I wish to note that what can be better than one brain's subset: the union of two brain subsets! Hint Hint.

kamaal2• 14 years ago

The concept of light table is very different than vim. Besides I believe chris is aiming his IDE for clojure users which in case it makes more sense for him to target it to emacs users.

Besides vim is all about modes, and memorizing commands.

That is exactly what light table is opposite off. Modes and Commands in vim is 'ancientness' when it comes to usability design.

But if you are still interested may be you should build a feature comparison matrix and track it.

LiveTheDream• 14 years ago

Modes and commands in vim are well designed and useable for an expert, which is the entire point.

shabble• 14 years ago

From the original kickstarter[1] app:

What about key bindings?

I'm a VIM guy myself, but since we'll be using the awesome CodeMirror[2] editor, this is something that is easily adapted. If you're looking for a way to contribute, help improve CodeMirror and its emacs/vim plugins!

I haven't actually played around with the current release to see if it's been integrated yet, but it's almost certainly part of the plan.

[1] http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/306316578/light-table

[2] http://codemirror.net/

MarkSweep• 14 years ago

If you view-source on this release you can see a vim.js file is included with vim bindings. I was able to activate them by setting a breakpoint in chrome on line 2098 of codemirror.js and typing this in the console:

  CodeMirror.defaults["keyMap"]="vim"

Presumably there will be a better way to turn them on in the future.

FireBeyond• 14 years ago

Maybe so, but then again - "contribute for free, after we raised a whole lot of money and funding for our work"...

DennisP• 14 years ago

CodeMirror's vim support is fairly limited though. Here's the list, in comments at the top of the code here: http://codemirror.net/keymap/vim.js

Also, "Because CodeMirror's internal API is quite different from Vim, they are only a loose approximation of actual vim bindings" http://codemirror.net/demo/vim.html

kamaal2• 14 years ago

Some comments in this thread are hilarious. Light Table is a modern IDE meant to demonstrate some cool concepts that belong to this time. And people are asking can if they can have vim and emacs bindings.

If all you want is vim or emacs, then use vim or emacs. What is the whole point is asking Light Table to behave like them?

Light Table is supposed to bring in new ways of developing software. Dragging ancient usability concepts just because a few can't work with anything else isn't how you build a new product.

ehsanu1• 14 years ago

You would feel differently if you were an avid vim/emacs user. There's no reason you can't combine the interactivity of Light Table with the key bindings from other text editors. The combination may prove more powerful, at least for those with the muscle memory for it.

breckinloggins• 14 years ago

Here is something else that belongs to "this time": the mouse and keyboard.

I do hope there will be some time in the future when we never have to type or reach for a mouse because our brains are the only I/O device. But until that time comes, we have essentially the same input mechanisms that we had when Vi and Emacs were invented.

In some ways, your point is a valid one; there are many, many features of these old programs that the Light Table developers should spend zero time re-implementing. However, editor bindings are a special case.

No matter how fancy the code editing interface is, in the end you still have to type out some code at some point. When the fingers hit the keyboard, many professional programmers have preferred and habitual ways of entering and editing text. In 10 years I might be using a text editor with flying swirling animations and cool animations that "zoom in" on an identifier into its definition, and so forth, but I won't be using it if it doesn't have Ctrl+c and Ctrl+v. Vim and Emacs keybindings are just second nature to many of the core audience for Light Table; it makes sense that those shortcuts are requested.

For further evidence that key-bindings and editing modes are acknowledged as universally useful things, regardless of origin, try typing Ctrl+E or Ctrl+A in any OS X text field. You'll jump to the end of beginning of the line, respectively. These are two of the many Emacs keybindings that are supported out of the box on every text control in OS X.

Now, to the last part of your point. I agree that these kinds of things shouldn't be the focus when developing a new product. When you're still just trying out ideas, you really don't have the time to implement every little feature request. However, when the thing you're developing is a developer tool, I think it behooves you to design and implement a rich plugin system as one of your first tasks. If your program and programmers have the Lisp nature, you almost do this without a second thought. But the payoff is big. If you can implement most of the program using its own plugin system, you're forced to design highly orthogonal primitives that play well together from the start. The end result is or should be that there's nothing a plugin author can't do that the original developers can do.

So if it were me writing this thing, I'd make sure to release a plugin system pretty early and tell everyone who wants to add Emacs, Vim, and Minesweeper to go nuts :)

batista3• 14 years ago

>But until that time comes, we have essentially the same input mechanisms that we had when Vi and Emacs were invented.

Actually the mouse was not a big deal at all when Emacs and Vi were invented -- virtually not existent at the kind of machines vi and emacs were developed, and it was not taken into account at all.

Jakob• 14 years ago

> but I won't be using it if it doesn't have Ctrl+c and Ctrl+v

I would use an editor which makes copy&pasting a thing of the past very happily.

In my experience copy&pasting is a big part of the problem. Some people use it to think less about the given structure and duplicate code, others use it to re-arrange code. Both are tasks which an editor like light table might handle better.

mrkrwtsn2• 14 years ago

Some system of shortcuts for doing everything with the keyboard would be nice though. Every time I move my hand to the mouse I'm losing time. I don't mind learning a new map, as long as it's as efficient as emacs.

obiterdictum• 14 years ago

The reason we want bindings similar to certain popular editors is because we have years of mechanical memory invested in them and for us it means better mechanical speed of interaction with the interface.

Keyboard bindings and general IDE approach are orthogonal concepts. There is no reason you can't have modern innovative IDE with familiar keyboard bindings.

lucian19003• 14 years ago

Well, Light Table supports both vim and emacs bindings anyway.

d2s• 14 years ago

Impressive project and it certainly gives a good reason to learn Clojure in the future. :)

Tried current version and it seemed interesting, even while I'm still quite of a beginner with code.

dmix• 14 years ago

I tried loading my clojure project (https://github.com/dmix/documeds) but I'm only getting a "Connecting" loading screen for 30min.

mischov• 14 years ago

It takes a VERY long time to load.

ibdknox5• 14 years ago

the reason it fails is because it's looking for an artifact that doesn't exist:

   Caused by: org.apache.maven.artifact.resolver.MultipleArtifactsNotFoundException: Missing:

   1) org.clojure.contrib:prxml:jar:1.3.0-alpha4

   Try downloading the file manually from the project website.

wamatt2• 14 years ago

I hope it allows for a "light" theme as well. Not all coding is done on dark backgrounds

ibdknox5• 14 years ago

It will, we just haven't gotten to those things yet :)

wamatt2• 14 years ago

Cool, I really like the idea, and will probably become a fan, once it's further along.

Bret Victor's talk was truly inspiring, and I'd wish he'd release his tool too for comparison.

Void_• 14 years ago

Looks beautiful on a Retina screen.

What is the color scheme you're using, by the way?

ludicast• 14 years ago

Enjoyed playing with light table. Ruby is still my favorite language, but clojure seems to be where all the innovation is at these days.

slurgfest• 14 years ago

This may sound completely insane or stupid to people who don't configure their tools much or are avid followers of the project - but is it possible to expose the preview functionality so that it can be used with other editors (e.g. vim)?

The ideas are interesting but swapping out my entire existing setup for them is not terribly appealing, even with some key-scheme... since I am not using notepad, there is a lot more which goes into my editing environment than the keys. And I am skeptical that anybody is going to do significantly better on text editing.

eranation4• 14 years ago

Shame on you, you made start playing and even liking Lisp instead of working. These were the best sources for me by the way if anyone is interested: http://tryclj.com/ http://www.4clojure.com/ (both are interactive, more coding, less reading)

cellularmitosis• 14 years ago

I'm wondering how difficult it would be to support Scheme. After seeing http://www.wescheme.org/about/ I'm guessing solutions to most of the hard parts are already out there?

minhhuong• 14 years ago

What languages are supported right now? I keep forgetting and all the images are showing clojure. Anyone know if there's any plans for haskell? http://khamphukhoa.com.vn/

Light Table reaches 0.1.0

Related Stories