8 ms·

Alive v1.0 – Live Programming for C#

125 points by Permit 11y ago

itgoon 11y ago
That looks very cool. Is it going to crush my processor? I'll give it a shot after I'm done with my work.
- amadeusw 11y ago
  No, all the processing is asynchronous. Depending on size of your project and complexity of the code, we can update within <100ms to a few seconds after your keystroke.
  - DougWebb 11y ago
    Is it going to crush my processor? No, all the processing is asynchronous. That's not an answer to the question. If every keystroke kicks off a compile-execute-report cycle, then the processor (and drive) are definitely going to be taking on a lot of additional load. It doesn't matter that it's asynchronous; all that does is prevent latency between keystrokes so long as your machine can keep up with the additional load. I use ReSharper, with pretty much default options because it's too much of a pain to figure out the magic combination of hundreds of options that will improve performance without disabling the features I like to use. ReSharper does its work on a background thread, but that doesn't stop it from making VS crawl when I open up a large solution after doing a scripted (external) rebuild. Async != Free Work.
    - eterm 11y ago
      Yup, I was gonna say this. We use ReSharper, but even on our modern dev machines visual studio can really crawl after building.
    - amadeusw 11y ago
      You're right, I didn't give a straight answer. Alive will use the CPU and the disk, but your computer won't be crawling nor crushed. And when you're done, just click the button to stop Alive, and it will stop - for real.
baconner 11y ago
Alive looks super cool, but the $99 price for individual devs feels pretty steep to me. It's basically just a different way to interact with the debugger during test right? So im not doing so much pause, edit, continue activity? Or am I am missing something?
- jaytaylor 11y ago
  If it saves you even an hour of time over the course of months or years then why wouldn't it be worth it? With that being said, if it's not yet "stable" then I agree, a hundred bucks is quite pricey for an unfinished dev tool.
  - baconner 11y ago
    Would I spend $100 to save myself an hour over a couple of months? Probably not, no. Not as an individual dev who could spend 100 bucks and get much more value for it. I could buy intellij for for the same price for instance.
    - reitanqild 11y ago
      Just a side note: very many Java developers mention IntelliJ. IntelliJ is good but I prefer the free Netbeans even when I have access to the full IntelliJ paid by the company.
  - slg 11y ago
    You can't spread the cost out of "years" because the individual license is only good for a year. I won't complain about the price because that is a value judgement that everyone will have to make on their own. However, it is always disappointing to see tools like this that an individual can't simply buy. Instead you have enter into a yearly licensing deal in which you have no idea what this software will cost in 12 months or even whether the company behind it will continue to be in business. These type of yearly licensing deals are the norm in enterprise environments, but they are harder to justify as an individual developer.
luisrudge 11y ago
I find the `for` example really bad. Mainly because 99% of the apps (I totally made up that number) are NOTHING like that. You usually are using DI, so you'll have an interface that you need to resolve and do stuff. How is alive going to deal with that?
- Permit 11y ago
  The examples shown are deliberately simple and meant to show off the concept. Alive isn't performing static analysis and guessing what your code is doing, it's compiling and running it while showing you the results. So as long as you have unit tests covering a piece of code, we can run those tests and show you what that piece of code does.
  - ohitsdom 11y ago
    It shows what the piece of code does in the unit tests? Or will it pull in the mock values used in the unit tests and show you their values on the actual code? And if there are multiple unit tests with different mock values, how does Alive pick which value to use?
    - Permit 11y ago
      Here's an example on Newtonsoft.Json: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AR1m3llrvg&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AR1m3llrvg&feature=youtu.be And here's another on using tests with Alive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJgMqTTKPBg&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJgMqTTKPBg&feature=youtu.be
- mattmanser 11y ago
  Do a lot of people use DI? I thought that was all a bit of a fad like factories. Lots of extra code for little benefit. Especially in a statically typed language like C# where it gets rid of so many of the benefits of using it as a language.
  - jenscow 11y ago
guiomie 11y ago
Pretty cool. Would it play nice if my code uses Dapper or Linq2SQL?
- Permit 11y ago
  It should! Fair warning, if you're not using mocks in your tests, it will be making network calls on every valid compilation. If anything isn't working you can report it on our public issue tracker: http://github.com/CodeConnect/AliveFeedback/ http://github.com/CodeConnect/AliveFeedback/
DanielBMarkham 11y ago
I like it! There's a ton of stuff you can do in this space: lint-type tips, RT TDD, code "explaining", path identification, etc. Keep up the good work! Would love to see more of this as it comes along.
muraiki 11y ago
It's really nice to see a tool like this come out for a statically typed language. When I started learning programming 2 years ago, tools like Light Table and the live editing capabilities of Seaside for Smalltalk were not only a huge help but are something I've come to miss in other languages. I think that live coding tools for the big 2 languages (C# and Java) could be a great boon to students learning programming in college, where at least in my area statically typed languages seem to be the norm.
- pjmlp 11y ago
  Xerox PARC already had it for Mesa/Cedar in the early 80's, which was the inspiration Niklaus Wirth had for his Oberon system. Which was a statically typed systems programming language with RC and local GC. http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/input-output/14/347/1860 http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/input-output/14/34... https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_xeroxparcteCedarProgrammingEnvironmentAMidtermRepo_13518000 https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_xeroxparcteCedarProgra... The progress we have lost with mainstream ignoring Xerox PARC research in programming environments. Those workstations already had something like IPython and Swift Playgrounds available.
  - iheartmemcache 11y ago
    PARC/Cedar looks real, real cool. I've heard them in passing but the earliest machines I got to use were the mid 90s Sun/SGI era and AS/400s. Local GC as in, as soon as you go out of scope you free? Or is it doing something more complicated than that. I love all these old/research languages/environments, so many cool ideas. Thanks for the archive.org PDF. PS: If you're interested in PARC, you might be interested in Brian Beckman, et al's (of MSR) "TimeWarp" http://www.cs.nyu.edu/srg/talks/timewarp.pdf http://www.cs.nyu.edu/srg/talks/timewarp.pdf. It ran into resource scarcity issues at the time but that's no longer an issue. Old PoC's are really interesting to revisit now that our main issue isn't space but latency. (Fun fact: A CPU -> Northbridge RAM fetch is only ~5x (~60 ms[1]) as fast as a prosumer eMLC SATA3 fetch (~200ns) . Data segmentation matters guys, if you are going to have a cache miss. Sequential data matters and predictable prefetching matters, and isn't "pre-optimization" if you're dealing with low-latency stuff!") (1): https://software.intel.com/sites/products/collateral/hpc/vtune/performance_analysis_guide.pdf https://software.intel.com/sites/products/collateral/hpc/vtu...
tabulatouch 11y ago
Woah! Make it work with Unity3D and in general with graphic libraries.
- amadeusw 11y ago
  Are there any libraries in particular that you're interested in?
ps4fanboy 11y ago
This is great, I wish more people where into live programming, it is the future.
Too 11y ago
This should be combined with Code Digger, it's a tool for C# that can detect all the possible ranges of input to a function by working in reverse from all the possible outcomes. If a function might throw an Exception somewhere it will show you the input that leads to that code path.
HerpDerpLerp 11y ago
How is this different to http://www.ncrunch.net/ http://www.ncrunch.net/ which runs tests as you type, so you know if tests are passing before you even save the file! Edit: Well that looks creepy :) I don't know ragebol and apart from being a happy user I don't have a relationship with the nCrunch dude!
- iheartmemcache 11y ago
  I'm not the developer of either product, but it seems like Alive has Roslyn based which offers direct access to every step of the compiler. Right now it doesn't look like much difference (in fact I bet NCrunch is more stable and has better integration with NUnit and the rest of the ecosystem), but I bet (purely speculating) that Alive intends on expanding their feature set into something more extensive. Performance wise, assuming the Alive developers use Roslyn efficiently (which admittedly is difficult), they could offer a lot more semantic/syntax analysis at a way faster rate (i.e., think about solutions with 10s of projects and hundreds/thousands of classes, while having a dynamic dependency graph available-- unit tests, invariants, and even property-based QuickCheck-esque testing could easily at type-time [as in after the keydown event] or a few hundred ms after). These are all capabilities inherent of being Roslyn based though, nothing too special about Alive, just a benefit it has over NCrunch should they choose to go down that road.
ragebol 11y ago
For just running tests, I found http://www.ncrunch.net/ http://www.ncrunch.net/ to be very handy. It puts a green/red/black dot before each line of code to indicate how it does in your unittests.

125 points by Permit 11y ago

itgoon 11y ago

That looks very cool. Is it going to crush my processor? I'll give it a shot after I'm done with my work.

amadeusw 11y ago
No, all the processing is asynchronous. Depending on size of your project and complexity of the code, we can update within <100ms to a few seconds after your keystroke.
- DougWebb 11y ago
  Is it going to crush my processor? No, all the processing is asynchronous. That's not an answer to the question. If every keystroke kicks off a compile-execute-report cycle, then the processor (and drive) are definitely going to be taking on a lot of additional load. It doesn't matter that it's asynchronous; all that does is prevent latency between keystrokes so long as your machine can keep up with the additional load. I use ReSharper, with pretty much default options because it's too much of a pain to figure out the magic combination of hundreds of options that will improve performance without disabling the features I like to use. ReSharper does its work on a background thread, but that doesn't stop it from making VS crawl when I open up a large solution after doing a scripted (external) rebuild. Async != Free Work.
  - eterm 11y ago
    Yup, I was gonna say this. We use ReSharper, but even on our modern dev machines visual studio can really crawl after building.
  - amadeusw 11y ago
    You're right, I didn't give a straight answer. Alive will use the CPU and the disk, but your computer won't be crawling nor crushed. And when you're done, just click the button to stop Alive, and it will stop - for real.

baconner 11y ago

Alive looks super cool, but the $99 price for individual devs feels pretty steep to me. It's basically just a different way to interact with the debugger during test right? So im not doing so much pause, edit, continue activity? Or am I am missing something?

jaytaylor 11y ago
If it saves you even an hour of time over the course of months or years then why wouldn't it be worth it? With that being said, if it's not yet "stable" then I agree, a hundred bucks is quite pricey for an unfinished dev tool.
- baconner 11y ago
  Would I spend $100 to save myself an hour over a couple of months? Probably not, no. Not as an individual dev who could spend 100 bucks and get much more value for it. I could buy intellij for for the same price for instance.
  - reitanqild 11y ago
    Just a side note: very many Java developers mention IntelliJ. IntelliJ is good but I prefer the free Netbeans even when I have access to the full IntelliJ paid by the company.
- slg 11y ago
  You can't spread the cost out of "years" because the individual license is only good for a year. I won't complain about the price because that is a value judgement that everyone will have to make on their own. However, it is always disappointing to see tools like this that an individual can't simply buy. Instead you have enter into a yearly licensing deal in which you have no idea what this software will cost in 12 months or even whether the company behind it will continue to be in business. These type of yearly licensing deals are the norm in enterprise environments, but they are harder to justify as an individual developer.

luisrudge 11y ago

I find the `for` example really bad. Mainly because 99% of the apps (I totally made up that number) are NOTHING like that. You usually are using DI, so you'll have an interface that you need to resolve and do stuff. How is alive going to deal with that?

Permit 11y ago
The examples shown are deliberately simple and meant to show off the concept. Alive isn't performing static analysis and guessing what your code is doing, it's compiling and running it while showing you the results. So as long as you have unit tests covering a piece of code, we can run those tests and show you what that piece of code does.
- ohitsdom 11y ago
  It shows what the piece of code does in the unit tests? Or will it pull in the mock values used in the unit tests and show you their values on the actual code? And if there are multiple unit tests with different mock values, how does Alive pick which value to use?
  - Permit 11y ago
    Here's an example on Newtonsoft.Json: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AR1m3llrvg&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AR1m3llrvg&feature=youtu.be And here's another on using tests with Alive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJgMqTTKPBg&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJgMqTTKPBg&feature=youtu.be
mattmanser 11y ago
Do a lot of people use DI? I thought that was all a bit of a fad like factories. Lots of extra code for little benefit. Especially in a statically typed language like C# where it gets rid of so many of the benefits of using it as a language.
- jenscow 11y ago

guiomie 11y ago

Pretty cool. Would it play nice if my code uses Dapper or Linq2SQL?

Permit 11y ago
It should! Fair warning, if you're not using mocks in your tests, it will be making network calls on every valid compilation. If anything isn't working you can report it on our public issue tracker: http://github.com/CodeConnect/AliveFeedback/ http://github.com/CodeConnect/AliveFeedback/

DanielBMarkham 11y ago

I like it! There's a ton of stuff you can do in this space: lint-type tips, RT TDD, code "explaining", path identification, etc. Keep up the good work! Would love to see more of this as it comes along.

muraiki 11y ago

It's really nice to see a tool like this come out for a statically typed language. When I started learning programming 2 years ago, tools like Light Table and the live editing capabilities of Seaside for Smalltalk were not only a huge help but are something I've come to miss in other languages. I think that live coding tools for the big 2 languages (C# and Java) could be a great boon to students learning programming in college, where at least in my area statically typed languages seem to be the norm.

pjmlp 11y ago
Xerox PARC already had it for Mesa/Cedar in the early 80's, which was the inspiration Niklaus Wirth had for his Oberon system. Which was a statically typed systems programming language with RC and local GC. http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/input-output/14/347/1860 http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/input-output/14/34... https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_xeroxparcteCedarProgrammingEnvironmentAMidtermRepo_13518000 https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_xeroxparcteCedarProgra... The progress we have lost with mainstream ignoring Xerox PARC research in programming environments. Those workstations already had something like IPython and Swift Playgrounds available.
- iheartmemcache 11y ago
  PARC/Cedar looks real, real cool. I've heard them in passing but the earliest machines I got to use were the mid 90s Sun/SGI era and AS/400s. Local GC as in, as soon as you go out of scope you free? Or is it doing something more complicated than that. I love all these old/research languages/environments, so many cool ideas. Thanks for the archive.org PDF. PS: If you're interested in PARC, you might be interested in Brian Beckman, et al's (of MSR) "TimeWarp" http://www.cs.nyu.edu/srg/talks/timewarp.pdf http://www.cs.nyu.edu/srg/talks/timewarp.pdf. It ran into resource scarcity issues at the time but that's no longer an issue. Old PoC's are really interesting to revisit now that our main issue isn't space but latency. (Fun fact: A CPU -> Northbridge RAM fetch is only ~5x (~60 ms[1]) as fast as a prosumer eMLC SATA3 fetch (~200ns) . Data segmentation matters guys, if you are going to have a cache miss. Sequential data matters and predictable prefetching matters, and isn't "pre-optimization" if you're dealing with low-latency stuff!") (1): https://software.intel.com/sites/products/collateral/hpc/vtune/performance_analysis_guide.pdf https://software.intel.com/sites/products/collateral/hpc/vtu...

tabulatouch 11y ago

Woah! Make it work with Unity3D and in general with graphic libraries.

amadeusw 11y ago
Are there any libraries in particular that you're interested in?

ps4fanboy 11y ago

This is great, I wish more people where into live programming, it is the future.

Too 11y ago

This should be combined with Code Digger, it's a tool for C# that can detect all the possible ranges of input to a function by working in reverse from all the possible outcomes. If a function might throw an Exception somewhere it will show you the input that leads to that code path.

HerpDerpLerp 11y ago

How is this different to http://www.ncrunch.net/ http://www.ncrunch.net/ which runs tests as you type, so you know if tests are passing before you even save the file! Edit: Well that looks creepy :) I don't know ragebol and apart from being a happy user I don't have a relationship with the nCrunch dude!

iheartmemcache 11y ago
I'm not the developer of either product, but it seems like Alive has Roslyn based which offers direct access to every step of the compiler. Right now it doesn't look like much difference (in fact I bet NCrunch is more stable and has better integration with NUnit and the rest of the ecosystem), but I bet (purely speculating) that Alive intends on expanding their feature set into something more extensive. Performance wise, assuming the Alive developers use Roslyn efficiently (which admittedly is difficult), they could offer a lot more semantic/syntax analysis at a way faster rate (i.e., think about solutions with 10s of projects and hundreds/thousands of classes, while having a dynamic dependency graph available-- unit tests, invariants, and even property-based QuickCheck-esque testing could easily at type-time [as in after the keydown event] or a few hundred ms after). These are all capabilities inherent of being Roslyn based though, nothing too special about Alive, just a benefit it has over NCrunch should they choose to go down that road.

ragebol 11y ago

For just running tests, I found http://www.ncrunch.net/ http://www.ncrunch.net/ to be very handy. It puts a green/red/black dot before each line of code to indicate how it does in your unittests.