Light Table IDE Finds Funding Success

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Light Table IDE Finds Funding Success

Posted by timothy on Saturday June 2, 2012 @06:27AM from the ok-but-dark-table-next dept.

omar.sahal writes "Chris Granger's Light Table IDE, covered here previously on Slashdot, has been successfully funded by a Kickstarter campaign. 7,317 backers brought in $316,720, obliging Chris to support the Python Programming language with his first release. Chris and his team have also been successful in being funded by Y Combinator. Here's some more background (video) on the concepts developed by Bret Victor found in Light Table.

94 comments

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

A little late by Mitreya · 2012-06-02 06:37 · Score: 4, Interesting

Links to Kickstarter projects are much more interesting BEFORE the the funding round ends. It's too late for anyone to participate.
By the way, why can't I fund a closed (but funded) Kickstarter project past the deadline?
1. Re:A little late by QuasiSteve · 2012-06-02 06:46 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Links to Kickstarter projects are much more interesting BEFORE the the funding round ends.
  uhm.
  
  Chris Granger's Light Table IDE, covered here previously on Slashdot
  
  By the way, why can't I fund a closed (but funded) Kickstarter project past the deadline?
  Sometimes you can - just not on KickStarter. KickStarter is an all-or-nothing + deadline type crowdfunding platform. There's actually very few that allow projects without a deadline - invested.in is biggest one that does that, off the top of my head.
  However, sometimes projects set up alternative funding routes on their website.. paypal, credit card directly, etc. You can try and see if they offer that.
2. Re:A little late by UCFFool · 2012-06-02 06:59 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  By the way, why can't I fund a closed (but funded) Kickstarter project past the deadline?
  As a successful Kickstarter project creator, I would hate that. It's one thing when you are doing software, but it's quite another when you are shipping a product. After it closes, you can go to the website and find out how you can get it once all Kickstarter backers are rewarded.
  
  --
  "The more pity, that fools may not speak wisely what wise men do foolishly" - Touchstone,Shakespeare's "As You Like It"
3. Re:A little late by DogDude · 2012-06-02 07:21 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  By the way, why can't I fund a closed (but funded) Kickstarter project past the deadline?
  
  You can. Just send the company a check.
  
  --
  I don't respond to AC's.
4. Re:A little late by gstrickler · 2012-06-02 07:30 · Score: 0, Flamebait
  
  ummmm, If you bother to look at the previous slashdot article, when it was covered before, it wasn't a kickstarter project.
  
  By the way, why can't I fund a closed (but funded) Kickstarter project past the deadline?
  Sometimes you can - just not on KickStarter.
  
  So, your response is that you can, except that you can't?
  It's useful to actually read the post your responding and to check your facts before posting.
  
  --
  make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
5. Re:A little late by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-02 07:35 · Score: -1
  
  Which I don't see. So what was your point?
  The OP's point is entirely valid. Let's make some effort to get these headlines up before the damn funding rounds end, eh?
  I know, /. is normally for discussion well after-the-fact, but sometimes a modest effort for timeliness would be useful.
6. Re:A little late by QuasiSteve · 2012-06-02 11:33 · Score: 1
  
  ummmm, If you bother to look at the previous slashdot article, when it was covered before, it wasn't a kickstarter project.
  I guess if people don't bother reading past the summary at Slashdot, you would be absolutely right.
  Of course if they had, they would have found the same tidbit that the following comment quoted 10 minutes after the story was posted:
  http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2789489&cid=39699579
  ( It was approved on the 17th )
  
  It's useful to actually read the post you're responding and to check your facts before posting
  It's more useful to hit preview so I close my blockquotes correctly, but to get to the point you're trying to make..
  
  So, your response is that you can, except that you can't?
  No, my response is that sometimes you can fund a project Kickstarter outside of the Kickstarter funding channel. That includes funding when the Kickstarter project has closed (successful, failed, cancelled or suspended) and when it's still live on Kickstarter itself.
  The Double Fine Adventure 'Kickstarter project', for example, also allowed funding outside of Kickstarter through their own site because Kickstarter didn't allow for the high pledge level the Double Fine guys had in mind. They additionally opened up a PayPal account for those who found credit cards (required by the Amazon setup which Kickstarter uses) to be a hassle or couldn't get theirs to work.
  I guess if you want to argue that a project that seeks funding through means other than Kickstarter can't be labeled 'Kickstarter project', then the answer is "No, you can't fund a 'Kickstarter project' after it's closed." It would be an incomplete answer, but there you go.
  That's why I attempted to give a more complete answer.
  And yes, I know that it seems that for this particular project, there is no alternative funding route (although I bet if you contact him and do the 'shut up and take my money' routine, there may be alternative routes yet). But then I'm just going to argue that 'sometimes [...]' is still a perfectly reasonable response to 'a [...[ project'.
7. Re:A little late by gstrickler · 2012-06-02 11:47 · Score: 1
  
  Thanks for the clarifications.
  
  I guess if people don't bother reading past the summary at Slashdot, you would be absolutely right.
  Of course if they had, they would have found the same tidbit that the following comment quoted 10 minutes after the story was posted:
  http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2789489&cid=39699579
  ( It was approved on the 17th )
  I looked before I commented, but I missed it. Seems Firefox was doing a case-sensitive search so searching for "kick" found no matches. Oops.
  
  --
  make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
8. Re:A little late by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-02 12:03 · Score: 1
  
  By the way, why can't I fund a closed (but funded) Kickstarter project past the deadline?
  As a successful Kickstarter project creator, I would hate that.
  I'm lost; you didn't actually explain why it would be bad for people to discover your project after it's complete.
  As a customer, if I can find out about something awesome you've done and I want to give you money for it how is that bad? As a business owner, how is it bad if people discover you through kickstarter and want to give you more money for something you've gotten off the ground?
  If it's an issue of only doing a limited run, then additional demand after the project completes indicates that your product fills a niche. You now have tons of different ways to handle that: do another limited run with crowd sourcing, sell off your extra inventory from canceled orders, expand your business (if sufficient demand), find a company to partner with, sell your product/company to someone more motivated. And if you only wanted to do one run in the first place simply say as much on your Kickstarter.
  So again, what's the problem here?
9. Re:A little late by Samantha+Wright · 2012-06-02 17:32 · Score: 1
  
  I think what UCFFool was going for would translate into "what if you have insufficient after-the-fact interest to do another limited run at an affordable level?" This would be especially problematic with printing, where there are really deep bulk discounts.
  
  --
  Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
10. Re:A little late by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-02 17:53 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  As a customer, if I can find out about something awesome you've done and I want to give you money for it how is that bad? As a business owner, how is it bad if people discover you through kickstarter and want to give you more money for something you've gotten off the ground?
  Supply Chain.
  If the project deadline arrives and you use the money to buy enough supplies to make a product for everyone +10% failures just to be safe. If another 100 people come along afterwards then you don't have the supplies to make and deliver the goods. If you got a bulk discount, ordering small boxes of supplies as people dribble in over a few weeks could destroy your profit margin.
  In short: Kickstarter is not a shop. You don't place orders for goods, you donate in the hope of getting something back. If you want to give money after the project is completed, go to the creator's website and see if they have an online store, if they do, buy it from there, otherwise, tough shit.
  
  sell off your extra inventory from canceled orders
  You can't cancel a Kickstarter donation. Once the money is delivered, there are no refunds and there's a two week holding period before the creator gets the cash in case someone does a chargeback on their credit card (Two weeks is apparently the limit, Visa and Mastercard will tell you to fuck off if you try to cancel a charge after that). Once you're committed, you're committed, no take-backs.
11. Re:A little late by LingNoi · 2012-06-02 18:47 · Score: 1
  
  Because you're trying to hope on a product with all the investment goodies without actually doing any of the donation/investment in a risky product. It's something no one wants to reward otherwise none of the kickerstarter projects would meet their goal because too many assholes are waiting for it to become to success first.
Yawn by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-02 06:40 · Score: -1

Second. And yawn. The default view is looks like VI. Why are people giving this guy $300K again? Eclipse and VS are both free. VI and emacs are free.
1. Re:Yawn by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-02 06:46 · Score: -1, Offtopic
  
  What is it with old guys and VI/Emacs? If it was up to you people, we'd never have developed desktop environments because Emacs has a file manager, web browser, and games.
2. Re:Yawn by fmobus · 2012-06-02 06:49 · Score: 2
  
  Did you even see their ideas? It's only similar to VI/emacs in that it's gonna have black background.
3. Re:Yawn by mozumder · 2012-06-02 06:52 · Score: -1
  
  VI and emacs are free.
  No, they're not free. There is a cost associated with them - the time to learn the commands.
  Do you think VI or Emacs is more expensive than Visual Studio?
4. Re:Yawn by durrr · 2012-06-02 06:53 · Score: 2
  
  You obviously didn't see the presentation that Bret Victor guy churned out, I can spoil it by saying it was pretty damn awsome.
  It's about fucking time that programming leaves the notepad + compiler stage.
5. Re:Yawn by mikmach · 2012-06-02 07:00 · Score: 1
  
  VI and emacs are free.
  No, they're not free. There is a cost associated with them - the time to learn the commands.
  Do you think VI or Emacs is more expensive than Visual Studio?
  Uh, huh. And this in this IDE you will be able to code fluently from second 0?
6. Re:Yawn by Hentes · 2012-06-02 07:03 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  True, but all of those were developed for static languages in mind. Using them for dynamic languages is uncomfortable. This project might become for Python and Lisp what those environments are for C and Java.
7. Re:Yawn by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-02 07:04 · Score: 0
  
  Are we on Slashdot? Let's see...
  Old as fuck Pedantic argument that applies generally to everything under the sun yet applied specifically towards an open source application to disparage it? Check.
  Yep, we're definitely on Slashdot. DIAF
8. Re:Yawn by mozumder · 2012-06-02 07:04 · Score: 1
  
  Uh, huh. And this in this IDE you will be able to code fluently from second 0?
  Why do you think people will be able to code fluently from second 0 in this IDE?
9. Re:Yawn by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-02 07:05 · Score: 0
  
  Maybe if you've been coding using nothing but GCC and Vi this looks awesome but anybody who's been using Xcode or VS isn't going to be too impressed.
10. Re:Yawn by theshowmecanuck · 2012-06-02 07:17 · Score: 1
  
  So are you saying that with light table you don't have to type code into an editor or compile the code? Great, we can hire programmers from the same demographic that McDonalds cooks come from now. Oh wait, you're saying we'll still have to write code? But not in an editor? Oh, we'll still have to use an editor? OK. But we won't need to compile the code? Oh, we'll still have to compile the code too. So what the fuck are you on about then?
  This looks interesting, and it will be even more interesting to see how it might be applied to say enterprise java apps (or any enterprise scale application whether in C, Java, whatever) as opposed to web based scripting languages. I'm all for something that provides more real estate for working with code etc. but it still boils down to an editor and a compiler (unless you are using only scripting languages). I'm in the wait and see mode on this one.
  
  --
  -- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
11. Re:Yawn by spatterson · 2012-06-02 07:18 · Score: 1, Informative
  
  Ummm... vi is the greatest editor ever created. That's what's with us "old guys". BTW, I'm not old
12. Re:Yawn by cheesybagel · 2012-06-02 07:19 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  The guy was a VS Project Manager at MS. It's in his bio...
13. Re:Yawn by mozumder · 2012-06-02 07:23 · Score: -1, Troll
  
  I'm just amused that there are still dorks that use VI & EMACS.
14. Re:Yawn by mehrotra.akash · 2012-06-02 07:38 · Score: 1
  
  WIll I have to press 5 cryptic keys just to save and close my file with this one?
  vi makes me press [esc]:wq (2 keys for :)
  Word OTOH lets me press + then enter, so 3 keys
15. Re:Yawn by frankgerlach74 · 2012-06-02 08:01 · Score: 1
  
  Maybe that is because some people don't want to waste time with these buggy, bloated and slow monsters you probably prefer. vi simply works and doesn't randomly crash every couple of hours like VS.
16. Re:Yawn by 1s44c · 2012-06-02 08:02 · Score: 1
  
  vi makes me press [esc]:wq (2 keys for :)
  [esc]:x
  or
  [esc]ZZ :wq was obsoleted in 1978, the only time to use it is when you have not changed a file but want to save it anyway to update the time stamp. It's nuts that most vi howtos still teach people to use :wq.
17. Re:Yawn by 1s44c · 2012-06-02 08:03 · Score: 1
  
  Wow. Slashdot mashed up the spacing on that comment.
  The commands are:
  [esc]:x
  or
  [esc]ZZ
18. Re:Yawn by 1s44c · 2012-06-02 08:06 · Score: 1
  
  It's not about looking pretty, it's about being a effective coding tool.
19. Re:Yawn by mrvan · 2012-06-02 08:09 · Score: 2
  
  Emacs and VI are good editors, and are great tools for working on a codebase and project that you are intimately familiar with.
  Eclipse and especailly VS are fantastic IDEs, but AFAIK they kind of suck on dynamic languages, because (1) they don't use any of the great opportunities for supporting a programmer using dynamic executing, inspection etc, and esp (2) because all the features that make most IDEs great (links to documentation, click-through to implementation, autocomplete) are done using static code inspection, which sucks with a dynamic language because you have no clue what type an object is or could be.
  If this can bring the power of a modern IDE to dynamic languages and actually uses the dynamic element of it do enhance coding, it will be a great new tool in the box.
20. Re:Yawn by 1s44c · 2012-06-02 08:16 · Score: 2
  
  Vi is hard to learn and ugly but it's a really good editor. Ever wanted to change a few thousand lines in some complex way that find & replace just can't handle? It's the work of seconds. Vi is low bandwidth so can change those few thousand lines over a 300 baud link or a mobile data connection from some other country where graphical tools would kill you on data charges. Vi is also available on all UNIX systems.
  I want to see you run VS over SSH on your mobile phone and manage to do anything productive with it.
  I've no idea what emacs has going for it, I have never used it. Some people seem to love it.
21. Re:Yawn by zer0sig · 2012-06-02 08:50 · Score: 1
  
  Emacs is a pretty cool project, and preferred mostly by coders, in my experience. Vi, on the other hand, is the only full screen text editor that is almost guaranteed to be in a default UNIX-type install, and if you work on many machines in a standardized production environment, you'd better at least learn the basics. I may not always use it at home but it has been the standard in almost every non-windows environment I have ever spent time on.
22. Re:Yawn by ILongForDarkness · 2012-06-02 09:25 · Score: 1
  
  The beautiful thing with vi and emacs is syntax highlighting imho. Often I get examples of langauges that I don't actually use myself (but were part of a project I downloaded or whatever). The great thing with Vim and emacs is they usually will highlight things well for you helping you visually figure out some of the syntax to get a quick idea of what is going on in the code. Want to open a Matlab file and just see what it contains not wait 20 sec for matlab to open or settle for ugly text editor monochrome font? Vi is the way to go.
  Anyways a lot of the time I find myself looking at code files without the need to edit them so I don't have the need for easy to use editing features I just want it to open quick with highlighting so if it is something like lisp (which I don't know) I can at least get a bit of training wheels to guide me around the code.
23. Re:Yawn by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-02 10:38 · Score: -1
  
  And likely he has not coded a single line of code for any real program. Usually one can see the negative correlation between coding skills and amount of mouse clicks quite easily. BTW, in VC++ 6 one could do most of the work without mouse, perhaps this was the guy who broke the whole IDE.
24. Re:Yawn by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-02 10:41 · Score: 0
  
  So on top of being cryptic, shortcuts get obsoleted?
  And on top of being cryptic and getting obsoleted, the replacements are equally cryptic?
  OK, got it.
  Call me back when you've got Crl+S/Ctrl+Q or something saner like that.
25. Re:Yawn by jbolden · 2012-06-02 10:43 · Score: 2
  
  VS and XCode support statically typed languages. How to provide anything like those services to dynamically typed languages has been complex. There are some IDEs out there for dynamic but the development is definitely much stronger on the static side.
26. Re:Yawn by AncientPC · 2012-06-02 11:27 · Score: 1
  
  He writes a decent amount of popular code if you check his GitHub profile.
27. Re:Yawn by Tenebrousedge · 2012-06-02 11:40 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Uh, huh. And this in this IDE you will be able to code fluently from second 0?
  Why do you think people will be able to code fluently from second 0 in this IDE?
  ELIZA program detected!
  
  --
  Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
28. Re:Yawn by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-02 11:44 · Score: 0
  
  there is no such thing as a non-cryptic keyboard command. There is such thing as a useful keyboard command.
29. Re:Yawn by DuckDodgers · 2012-06-02 14:03 · Score: 2
  
  Did you watch the videos? Some of the ideas presented seem genuinely innovative - like the ability to move blocks of code from within a single file to different portions of the screen. That's flexibility related to what code you have on screen that's a few steps past multiple tabs, split screens, and folding editors.
  
  And Light Table will be open source, though I think the creator is considering the creation of some proprietary add-ons.
30. Re:Yawn by Surt · 2012-06-02 15:39 · Score: 1
  
  I use VS pretty heavily, and have never had it crash. I've had the project I was working on take down the operating system a few times, but I'm pretty sure that's independent of the IDE you choose.
  
  --
  "Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
31. Re:Yawn by Surt · 2012-06-02 16:09 · Score: 1
  
  So what you're saying is that over the course of 30 years, they've managed to get the key count down 20%.
  And wq was current on the version of vi I was using in 93. So apparently that change took a LOOOONG time to propogate.
  
  --
  "Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
32. Re:Yawn by RobbieThe1st · 2012-06-02 21:15 · Score: 1
  
  How about Geany, then? Lightweight, with syntax highlighting, and a decent GUI.
  To be fair, I use VIM as well, but for most things, a GUI is quicker.
33. Re:Yawn by 1s44c · 2012-06-02 22:44 · Score: 1
  
  I never use the syntax highlighting in vim. I find it very ugly and prone to using unreadable color combinations like dark blue on black.
  Maybe I'm using it wrong.
34. Re:Yawn by horza · 2012-06-02 22:51 · Score: 1
  
  Geany is my favourite editor, though whether locally or remotely I often use vim anyway. It's so easy to type vi my, s/x/y/, :x. For quick changes, especially a config file, the command line and vim is so much quicker. For writing code Geany is nicer. One thing where vim rules is that it's impossible to lose data. If the computer dies then next time you run vim it automatically recovers the data. I wish Geany would do this.
  Phillip.
  
  --
  Property for sale in Nice, France
35. Re:Yawn by mehrotra.akash · 2012-06-02 23:19 · Score: 1
  
  [Ctrl]+s
  Save
  [Ctrl]+n
  New
  [Ctrl]+o
  open
  b for bold, i for italic, u for underline
  Much less cryptic than vi stuff
36. Re:Yawn by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-03 04:07 · Score: 0
  
  perhaps you should code in oneNote - in doesn't require you to do anything to save a file.
37. Re:Yawn by Raenex · 2012-06-03 04:50 · Score: 1
  
  Somebody who isn't familiar with keyboard commands and gets confronted with a UI that depends on stuff like Ctl-S to save is going to find it cryptic. What you wrote are simple mnemonics that also apply to VI: w = write, q = quit, x = eXit, d = delete, etc.
  If you want really cryptic commands, try learning the Emacs equivalents (and I say this as someone who prefer Emacs over vi).
38. Re:Yawn by arose · 2012-06-03 19:36 · Score: 1
  
  How many keys will I have to press to mark a position that I can recall or insert into a macro outside of Emacs? Or if that's too much, can I get something with a decent keyboard selection mechanism?
  
  --
  Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
Just hover your mouse... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-02 07:32 · Score: -1

No, no I won't, fuck you and your mouse centric interface to an application that is mostly about text entry and lookup.
informative tags by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-02 07:34 · Score: -1

lol python, finance, money.
nice tags dipshit.
it was written with JS and clojure in mind, and Python support was added as an extra incentive to get to a certain monetary goal via Kickstarter.
Light Table - Why it's Cool by phantomfive · 2012-06-02 07:46 · Score: 4, Informative

It took me a long time to figure out what is interesting about Light Table. If you've seen Eclipse or Visual Studio, you might think that it's really boring, because both of those can do all that and more.

What's cool about it is this works in Python, which is a late-bound language. So far, no IDE will give you thinks like autocomplete for a language like Python or Ruby. This isn't a huge problem, but it's nice to have.

--
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
1. Re:Light Table - Why it's Cool by tzot · 2012-06-02 08:06 · Score: 2
  
  > So far, no IDE will give you thinks like autocomplete for a language like Python
  Even "home-grown" IDLE has (semi)autocompletion.
  
  --
  I speak England very best
2. Re:Light Table - Why it's Cool by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-02 09:37 · Score: 0
  
  So far, no IDE will give you thinks like autocomplete for a language like Python or Ruby.
  Both Netbeans and Eclipse have had autocompletion for python for ages. I don't know about Ruby though.
  That or your definition of autocompletion is not the same as everyone else ...
3. Re:Light Table - Why it's Cool by TheGothicGuardian · 2012-06-02 11:27 · Score: 1
  
  Spyder is the best that I've found. Auto-completion, documentation, style checking, and more.
4. Re:Light Table - Why it's Cool by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-02 11:43 · Score: 0
  
  I havent tried spyder, but I know people like it. I use WingIDE. It has that stuff and the debugger is AMAZING!
5. Re:Light Table - Why it's Cool by mario_grgic · 2012-06-02 14:42 · Score: 1
  
  I can't believe that to be true. Even vi will give you auto complete out of the box and there are even better auto complete vi plugins for Python out there.
  
  --
  As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
6. Re:Light Table - Why it's Cool by phantomfive · 2012-06-02 18:02 · Score: 1
  
  Problem is you don't always know what type a variable is. Can't do auto-complete if you don't know what type it is.
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
7. Re:Light Table - Why it's Cool by alendit · 2012-06-02 21:02 · Score: 1
  
  How is this informative? This guy clearly doesn't know what he is talking about. PyDev (Plugin for Eclipse) gives you autocomplete since ages. You don't need static typing to be able to read out interfaces. IPython (interactive python extension) does it too. Or like pretty single one of these http://wiki.python.org/moin/IntegratedDevelopmentEnvironments . Hell, there even a VIM autocompletion plugin, if you are into that sort of stuff.
  As for differences, how about showing results of your program as you type? Or Method-based hierarchie instead of file-based one? Watch the intro video one more time, please.
8. Re:Light Table - Why it's Cool by thetoadwarrior · 2012-06-02 22:42 · Score: 1
  
  I can't think of a python IDE that doesn't give you autocompletion. Over glorified text editors like notepad++ aren't IDEs.
9. Re:Light Table - Why it's Cool by phantomfive · 2012-06-03 06:23 · Score: 2
  
  How is this informative?
  Apparently because no one else can figure out what is cool about light table either lol.
  
  Showing results as you type is neither innovative, original, or often not even very useful, and neither is a method-based hierarchy. Everyone switched to thinking of them as class-based hierarchies a long time ago.
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
10. Re:Light Table - Why it's Cool by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-03 20:59 · Score: 0
  
  > Apparently because no one else can figure out what is cool about light table either lol.
  AFAICS, the only cool thing about Light Table is that the author somehow managed to pull a third of a million to write Yet Another Clojure^WPython Ide. Go figure...
11. Re:Light Table - Why it's Cool by phantomfive · 2012-06-04 04:30 · Score: 1
  
  How can it give you autocompletion in a language that is dynamically typed? Serious question.
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
12. Re:Light Table - Why it's Cool by thetoadwarrior · 2012-06-04 05:11 · Score: 1
  
  With PyCharm I assume it looks at your imports and the variables initial declaration to figure out what you meant and generally it gets it. However if it's unsure it presents you with a list of possible options. Granted if you don't have a clue what you're working with you're still going to be a bit stuck as to which one is the correct one but how many newbies load up their site-packages with a load of libs that could conflict and then take on a large project and try to rewrite it?
  
  It's not 100% perfect but I've been using it since it's beta (at least 2 years) and I can only think of one or two times where the auto-completion wasn't helpful excluding the initial releases that wouldn't read python packages that used C like wxpython but the quickly fixed.
13. Re:Light Table - Why it's Cool by phantomfive · 2012-06-04 13:34 · Score: 1
  
  Interesting. I'm not sure what is cool about this then.
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
14. Re:Light Table - Why it's Cool by cduffy · 2012-06-04 15:50 · Score: 1
  
  Interesting. I'm not sure what is cool about this then.
  I can only think that you haven't looked at the demo videos - any of them.
  Giving you the results of code execution, live, as you work?
  Determining the codepaths traversed to fill out a template, and putting the specific models, controllers, views, and other related methods right in front of you -- no bouncing between files?
  Giving you tools to render your live display into an IDE pane, so you can actually play your game, show your web interface, &c. as you edit the code that builds those things?
  There's lots that's cool about Light Table, and none of it has anything to do with autocompletion.
stupid by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-02 07:46 · Score: -1, Troll

IDE interface for people who doesn't know how to program. news at 11.
so far I only saw this idea working for standard output but guess what? stdout is not the only destination of the processed data. what about files? what about pipes? network sockets? RPC? threading? lesson of the day, a program does much more than just displaying data.
And what it is with this guy saying his IDE is much better than a traditional debugger? I'm sure she knows shit about how properly debug a program to say something like that.
1. Re:stupid by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-02 07:53 · Score: 0
  
  Sounds like you also have problems with the English language. How can you possibly be competent in machine languages?
2. Re:stupid by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-02 08:08 · Score: 0
  
  uaaaa.. a random guy in the internets just told me my english sucks, I think I'm going to cry!
  I speak e escrevo plus de langues que la plupart des mecs incluyendo lenguaje de máquina, portanto STFU e vai-te foder.
3. Re:stupid by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-02 08:20 · Score: 1
  
  Easy, formal languages are far simpler than natural languages.
4. Re:stupid by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-02 08:23 · Score: 0
  
  stupid bitch lol
5. Re:Stupid by Lproven · 2012-06-03 01:09 · Score: 1
  
  So you've clearly never used code written on, say, an Apple Newton or an iPad, or possibly even a PalmOS machine - all systems where the user (for which, read "programmer") has no access to the filesystem or there IS no filesystem.
  You need to get out more. Learn about how much you don't know before you start confidently making statements about the world.
  
  --
  Liam P. ~ "Intelligence is a lethal mutation." (me)
6. Re:stupid by siride · 2012-06-03 02:23 · Score: 1
  
  Are you Tommy Wiseau?
7. Re:Stupid by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-03 07:32 · Score: 0
  
  "there IS no filesystem"
  You need to get out more. Learn about how much you don't know before you make stupid statements like that.
8. Re:Stupid by thetoadwarrior · 2012-06-03 23:41 · Score: 1
  
  So which of those systems does no have a file system at all?
  
  Just because a system doesn't give you full access to the file system doesn't mean things aren't represent their file structure.
9. Re:Stupid by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-04 00:58 · Score: 0
  
  The Newton.
  Also note that iPad games written entirely on the iPad are being published now, e.g. CargoBot.
  http://twolivesleft.com/CargoBot/
vi by 1s44c · 2012-06-02 07:53 · Score: 1

I've never had any use for IDEs, but Light Table looks nice. Very easy access to documentation would be a massive help with just about everything.
I'm playing with ruby on rails right now. Can anyone recommend a IDE that's actually better than using vi?
1. Re:vi by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-02 08:00 · Score: 1
  
  Can anyone recommend a IDE that's actually better than using vi?
  Emacs! /duck-for-cover
2. Re:vi by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-02 08:39 · Score: 0
  
  Not an IDE but I'm using TextMate, really nice software for editing code.
3. Re:vi by lattyware · 2012-06-02 09:11 · Score: 1
  
  You might want to check out RubyMine. I've never used it myself (not a Ruby person), but I'm a big fan of PyCharm, JetBrain's Python offering, which is excellent, so I imagine it would also be very good.
  
  --
  -- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)
4. Re:vi by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-02 12:22 · Score: 0
  
  Yeah RubyMine is pretty good and it supports a vim plugin to boot (although I haven't used the plugin enough to attest to its quality).
What am i missing here? by nurb432 · 2012-06-02 10:49 · Score: 2

From a quick glance at the sparse web page, it seems rather basic and nothing to get excited about..
So why should i care about this? ( no, not trolling, seriously. why should i want to jump ship from something like Eric or pyscripter? )

--
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Not funding, donations by loufoque · 2012-06-02 11:45 · Score: 1

It would make sense for a funding system to have a limit, since there is only so much you're willing to give to investors.
But Kickstarter is not a funding system, it's a donation system. The fact that it tries to look like funding is probably to lure the common people into giving their money away without any returns, exploiting the fact people would quite like to play at investing. It is arguably a scam.
i use nano by decora · 2012-06-02 13:23 · Score: 1

and bash.
all you haters suck my balls.
nano by decora · 2012-06-02 13:26 · Score: 1

ctrl + o + enter
the vi people need to learn arithmetic.
Escape + shift + ; + x is not 'three keys', its 'four keys'.
1. Re:nano by mehrotra.akash · 2012-06-02 18:26 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, I like nano
Open source or close source? by Taco+Cowboy · 2012-06-02 14:15 · Score: 1

Is Light Table going to be an open source project or a close source project?

--
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
1. Re:Open source or close source? by Samantha+Wright · 2012-06-02 17:25 · Score: 1
  
  Will it be open source?
  
  I'm a firm believer in open source software and open source technologies. I can guarantee you that Light Table will be built on top of the technologies that are freely available to us today. As such, I believe it only fair that the core of Light Table be open sourced once it is launched. At some level, this is an experiment in how open source and business can mix - it will be educational for us all.
  
  --
  Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
2. Re:Open source or close source? by Raenex · 2012-06-03 04:34 · Score: 1
  
  The answer, then, is no, it won't be open source. There's nothing "educational" about keeping the premium parts closed source, as it's been done by many projects. This "firm believer" nonsense is self-serving bullshit.
3. Re:Open source or close source? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-03 19:20 · Score: 0
  
  Firm belief that he should be able to build his premium stuff on top of everyone else's work?
Stupid by thetoadwarrior · 2012-06-02 22:56 · Score: 1

It looks like the alternative to IDEs written by a hipster who thinks notepad++ is an ide. No matter how much he hates it code is written in files and no matter how much he tries to pretend they're not, it's not going to change.
Nice idea by TheSkepticalOptimist · 2012-06-06 08:40 · Score: 1

But the problem is that while showing some basic examples of "new" concepts, extending this into a fully functional IDE for "any" language and platform is going to take far more time and money to develop then what the Kickstarter project is going to provide. When was the last time you wrote code like 3 + 4 = that could provide immediate evaluation.
That shouldn't discourage the developer from proceeding, but I think his only goal would be to be bought up by Microsoft, Apple, Google, or some other prevalent software company with their own IDE to integrate those ideas rather the going it alone. I don't imagine Light Table ever competing with VS, X-Code or Eclipse, but any of those IDE's would certainly benefit from these concepts.
Bottom line is, this guy has provided a great resume in which any of those companies should consider for hire to work on their dev platforms. The future of mobile apps screams for easier and more rapid development.

--
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.