Light Table

Kyek

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Posted 04 May 2012 - 07:34 AM (#1)

Light Table

$15 Kickstarter

This isn't really breaking news or anything, but awhile back, this dude named Chris Granger shared his prototype for an IDE called Light Table. It's a full screen editor that automatically brings up the documentation for any function you're using, off to the side so that it doesn't cover up your code (I'm looking at you, Eclipse and Netbeans and Komodo and a million other editors who think it's smart to do this with a tooltip). Instead of staring at a list of files, you get a cloud of functions. When you reference one of your other functions, you see the function on screen, individually pulled out of the file for reference. It parses and tests your code as you write it, so that you can see how your logic works as you type. If this sounds interesting at all, check out the demo here: http://vimeo.com/40281991 Or Chris's blog post about it here: http://www.chris-gra...ew-ide-concept/

Chris is a Clojure guy, but has stated that this can work with any language with a dynamic interpreter. There's plans for Javascript/Node for the first release, but PHP, Ruby, or Python could be tacked on later.

If you're interested in seeing this, there's a Kickstarter for it. If you're not familiar with the site, you basically pledge an amount of money to the project (generally, the more you pledge, the more benefits you'll get) and if it's passed the funding goal by the due date, THEN your money is taken from your account and sent to the author. You're not guaranteed anything, you're just investing in the project. In this case, if the project is successful, you get a license when it's released (projected May 2013).

The kickstarter: http://kck.st/J6mgBL

So yeah. I'm posting this totally out of selfishness, as I really want this project to happen and the goal isn't met yet xD

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Cyril

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Posted 04 May 2012 - 09:19 AM (#2)

Yeah, saw it on Reddit a while back (before it was kickstarted).
It definitely looks good, but look into the "replies" to it -- some (basic) things come up that you wouldn't usually see, and when you think about it, there's nothing really revolutionary. Most of it is just another IDE, just with a nice GUI.

Hell -- imagine trying to edit Hydrogen. The video shows 'ideal' code -- a few lines of code here and there, short methods. (I know this, I do it for websites

I usually edit text to make it look right in the layout -- that's also the case here).
A few lines of code isn't always the case, and I don't see myself editing a lot of code in there.

Something I don't understand;
Posted Image

So, 15$ gets me on the contrib list, and a license? But wait, the price for a single license (nothing else) is 50$.... and 50$ can also get you the license and beta access. Wut? And 30$ just gets you a tshirt?

(Doesn't support PayPal, for those who use it, by the way. I'll admit I don't really believe in the project, but I'd love to contribute. If anyone could help me out... Don't have access to a CC)

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Kyek

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Posted 04 May 2012 - 10:24 AM (#3)

Yeah-- the video is definitely a prototype and there will need to be more thought put into the final product, but even for the interface and live debugging alone, I'd write my Node work in there. I've been programming in Node almost exclusively at work for the past few months -- this would have saved me a lot of time

. Especially in test writing.

The price craziness is because the guy originally launched the Kickstarter with $15 just being a supporter of the project and $50 being the first tier that gives you a license. Folks on HN talked some sense into him, so he made $15 give people a license -- but Kickstarter doesn't let you delete tiers you've created, so it still has the old $15 and old $50.

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DarkCoder

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Posted 04 May 2012 - 03:39 PM (#4)

Not quite sure how this could possibly need $200,000 in investment...

lynxphp

callumacrae

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Posted 04 May 2012 - 03:44 PM (#5)

olie122333, on 04 May 2012 - 03:39 PM, said:

Not quite sure how this could possibly need $200,000 in investment...

To pay a team of developers?

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Kyek

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Posted 06 May 2012 - 08:40 AM (#6)

Yeah-- funding for two devs for a year (or one really really amazing dev) after kickstarter takes their 5% and then income taxes come out. A lot of kickstarter projects are people trying to decide if they can afford to quit their job to do what they really want to do.

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