7 ms·

It's good that LT is finally acknowledged to have failed as "the uber clojure IDE". It's architecture is horrible, and its catering too much to other languages.

by ticking 11y ago

It's good that LT is finally acknowledged to have failed as "the uber clojure IDE". It's architecture is horrible, and its catering too much to other languages. Once it's dead the space it frees up can be filled again by something that actually works.

seanmcdirmid 11y ago
Failed experiments can lead to great results down the road. I'm predicting that LT was probably totally worth it.
- ticking 11y ago
  LT didn't bring any new inventions, emacs, self, morphic, CL, they've all done some aspect of it 30 years earlier. LT has shown however that you can make a load of money of kickstarter without delivering a product, but people will still throw money at you for building the next big unfinished thing (see their new pet project with a broken architecture called EVE).
  - seanmcdirmid 11y ago
    This is why academia sucks so badly: they think because some features were released in some projects that "there is nothing new under the sun." Bull! There is still a lot to be explored and none of those projects you listed contain much of the live programming story at all (Chris Hancock at MIT did flogo II, which is more relevant than the Lisp and smalltalk projects). To make any progress at all, we just need to stop listening to those who are living in the glory of a past that wasn't so great anyways.
    - lmm 11y ago
      But LT hasn't achieved either half. It's not an innovative research project. And it's not a polished consumer product.
      - zubairq 11y ago
        Did any of you guys even use Light Table. I bet you didn't as it did some pretty amazing stuff that no other IDE could touch!
        ticking 11y ago
        Yes, I also dug into its codebase. Have you actually used Self for example?
        zubairq 11y ago
        I guess if you are trying to use Light Table as "the uber clojure IDE" then it was never a goal for Light Table. Intellij Cursive is probably a better editor for that. Light Table's aim was for a form of interactive programming. Anyway, using an editor as an end user is very different to just playing around with its source code, although I applaud that you have done that. I will look into "Self" some more as I don't know enough about it. Do you have some good links on Self to get me started?
        ticking 11y ago
        http://www.selflanguage.org http://www.selflanguage.org You should watch the videos on the introduction page and play a bit with the system, it's interesting to see how much interactivity and liveliness was already achieved in the 80s/90s,
    - ticking 11y ago
      They didn't contain much of the live programming story? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox5P7QyL774 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox5P7QyL774 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ka4KY7TMTU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ka4KY7TMTU
  - nhangen 11y ago
    Not sure why this is getting downvoted. Perhaps the truth here is harsh, but it's the truth nonetheless. Perhaps not the whole truth, but at least part of it.
    - coldtea 11y ago
      The part about LT overpromising and underdelivering is true. The rest is not true, and said with a partisan rudeness to top, mostly like someone wanting to piss over LT and Chris than a genuine criticism. It starts: "It's good that LT is finally acknowledged to have failed as "the uber clojure IDE". It never said it was the "the uber clojure IDE", not even used any words to this effect. It was an experiment in IDEs in general, and in fact the very landing page of the project writes: "When we released our first blog post about Light Table back in April of 2012, it was just a new concept for an IDE. Thanks to the community, our concept was pushed to become a reality." Moreover the parent continues: >It's architecture is horrible, and its catering too much to other languages. "Catering too much to other languages"? What does that even mean? Did anybody signed to the parent that it would only be for his favorite language (the "uber clojure IDE" he dreamt?)? It was due to huge community demand that LT promised to support Javascript and Python too. >Once it's dead the space it frees up can be filled again by something that actually works. Nobody stopped the parent or anyone else from using something existing "that actually works" or creating something even better. In fact the project is already usable for a lot of us for daily exploratory coding, not to mention having put some nice ideas to the forefront of future IDE work, including having concretely inspired the Swift playground features (as the Swift designer admitted). It's just the usual old HN piss contest. As if it was all a scheme to make $300K off of kickstarter. I don't know where the parent lives, but for someone like Chris and with Chris' past, that's money you can make in half a year in the US software business -- not having to slave to create a whole new IDE, or hire other people to give them a chunk of the money off...
      - smrtinsert 11y ago
        well stated.
      - ticking 11y ago
  - tormeh 11y ago
    Combining old features is a new feature.

by ticking 11y ago

seanmcdirmid 11y ago

Failed experiments can lead to great results down the road. I'm predicting that LT was probably totally worth it.

ticking 11y ago
LT didn't bring any new inventions, emacs, self, morphic, CL, they've all done some aspect of it 30 years earlier. LT has shown however that you can make a load of money of kickstarter without delivering a product, but people will still throw money at you for building the next big unfinished thing (see their new pet project with a broken architecture called EVE).
- seanmcdirmid 11y ago
  This is why academia sucks so badly: they think because some features were released in some projects that "there is nothing new under the sun." Bull! There is still a lot to be explored and none of those projects you listed contain much of the live programming story at all (Chris Hancock at MIT did flogo II, which is more relevant than the Lisp and smalltalk projects). To make any progress at all, we just need to stop listening to those who are living in the glory of a past that wasn't so great anyways.
  - lmm 11y ago
    But LT hasn't achieved either half. It's not an innovative research project. And it's not a polished consumer product.
    - zubairq 11y ago
      Did any of you guys even use Light Table. I bet you didn't as it did some pretty amazing stuff that no other IDE could touch!
      - ticking 11y ago
        Yes, I also dug into its codebase. Have you actually used Self for example?
        zubairq 11y ago
        I guess if you are trying to use Light Table as "the uber clojure IDE" then it was never a goal for Light Table. Intellij Cursive is probably a better editor for that. Light Table's aim was for a form of interactive programming. Anyway, using an editor as an end user is very different to just playing around with its source code, although I applaud that you have done that. I will look into "Self" some more as I don't know enough about it. Do you have some good links on Self to get me started?
        ticking 11y ago
        http://www.selflanguage.org http://www.selflanguage.org You should watch the videos on the introduction page and play a bit with the system, it's interesting to see how much interactivity and liveliness was already achieved in the 80s/90s,
  - ticking 11y ago
    They didn't contain much of the live programming story? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox5P7QyL774 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox5P7QyL774 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ka4KY7TMTU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ka4KY7TMTU
- nhangen 11y ago
  Not sure why this is getting downvoted. Perhaps the truth here is harsh, but it's the truth nonetheless. Perhaps not the whole truth, but at least part of it.
  - coldtea 11y ago
    The part about LT overpromising and underdelivering is true. The rest is not true, and said with a partisan rudeness to top, mostly like someone wanting to piss over LT and Chris than a genuine criticism. It starts: "It's good that LT is finally acknowledged to have failed as "the uber clojure IDE". It never said it was the "the uber clojure IDE", not even used any words to this effect. It was an experiment in IDEs in general, and in fact the very landing page of the project writes: "When we released our first blog post about Light Table back in April of 2012, it was just a new concept for an IDE. Thanks to the community, our concept was pushed to become a reality." Moreover the parent continues: >It's architecture is horrible, and its catering too much to other languages. "Catering too much to other languages"? What does that even mean? Did anybody signed to the parent that it would only be for his favorite language (the "uber clojure IDE" he dreamt?)? It was due to huge community demand that LT promised to support Javascript and Python too. >Once it's dead the space it frees up can be filled again by something that actually works. Nobody stopped the parent or anyone else from using something existing "that actually works" or creating something even better. In fact the project is already usable for a lot of us for daily exploratory coding, not to mention having put some nice ideas to the forefront of future IDE work, including having concretely inspired the Swift playground features (as the Swift designer admitted). It's just the usual old HN piss contest. As if it was all a scheme to make $300K off of kickstarter. I don't know where the parent lives, but for someone like Chris and with Chris' past, that's money you can make in half a year in the US software business -- not having to slave to create a whole new IDE, or hire other people to give them a chunk of the money off...
    - smrtinsert 11y ago
      well stated.
    - ticking 11y ago
- tormeh 11y ago
  Combining old features is a new feature.