5 ms·

Lively.next: A personal programming kit

68 points by MichaelAO 9y ago

nasso 9y ago
That frontpage uses alot of words to say absolutely nothing... Someone care to tl;dr what this is?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
anotheryou 9y ago
Another semi-graphical live programming environment I guess. I'm still hoping for http://witheve.com/ http://witheve.com/ to take off :) Lively reminds me of TouchDesigner (node based programming with a focus on visuals) http://derivative.ca/events/2017/AlienCovenant/ http://derivative.ca/events/2017/AlienCovenant/
stutonk 9y ago
This appears to be a system in the Smalltalk lineage but based on Node and JavaScript and currently seems only to target MacOS. It uses Self/Smalltalk's UI system and is based on ideas by Alan Kay (of Xerox PARC fame and one of the creators of Smalltalk). The web interface looks and feels similar to a web-capable Smalltalk variant called Lively Kernel[1] but in a less-mature state of development and with more of a focus on text. 1) https://lively-kernel.org/ https://lively-kernel.org/
robertkrahn01 9y ago
Author here. lively.next is a runtime and development environment. It comes with a graphical user interface and programming tools that allow you to program similarly to Smalltalk and Self, i.e. instead of a edit-compile-run cycle you have an ever running "program" and change various parts of it directly. With that you have access to runtime objects that you can inspect, use for code completion, or modify. Apart from the UI (inspired by Self's Morphic [1]), lively.next implements a meta system on top of normal JavaScript that makes such things possible as to hold on and inspect system state (variables defined inside a module, mechanisms for redefining things etc). Also, lively.next runs on any JS system and it's various packages can be embedded, e.g. to create a programming environment for node.js and other such things. The Lively project evolved over time and lively.next is the newest version: - https://www.lively-kernel.org https://www.lively-kernel.org is from the Sun Labs / HPI days (check out the ancient http://sunlabs-kernel.lively-web.org http://sunlabs-kernel.lively-web.org, fully SVG based rendering) - Lively Web: https://lively-web.org https://lively-web.org A live, programmable wiki (2012-2015) - lively.next since 2016 https://lively-next.org https://lively-next.org. [1] http://ftp.squeak.org/docs/Self-4.0-UI-Framework.pdf http://ftp.squeak.org/docs/Self-4.0-UI-Framework.pdf
- skybrian 9y ago
  This sounds interesting for personal use, but I'm curious about how you share programs with people who aren't running the whole lively environment? What does that look like?
  - robertkrahn01 9y ago
    There are two parts to this: a) How to user graphical constructions (we call them parts) outside of the main framework? We currently work on ways to "snapshot" them in a way that they include all their dependencies. So not just the object (graph) state but really all code dependencies. es6 modules are a big help here since they allow to trace dependencies statically. This is work in progress and we will post updates about this. The state right now is that you can the HTML view of morphs into web pages, e.g. see [2] b) Several parts of the system can be used standalone, e.g. you can enable support for Lively tooling in node.js processes or arbitrary webpages. See https://lively-next.org/worlds/lively-2-webpage https://lively-next.org/worlds/lively-2-webpage for a bookmarklet that loads the lively.vm [1] and lively-system-interface on a arbitrary web page: https://imgur.com/a/2foGR https://imgur.com/a/2foGR. This allows you to then use the workspaces, system browser, inspectors, etc. on remote targets. [1] https://livelykernel.github.io/lively.vm/ https://livelykernel.github.io/lively.vm/ [2] https://lively-next.org/worlds/lively.next%20website https://lively-next.org/worlds/lively.next%20website
- oddthink 9y ago
  Thanks for the links. I've been looking for something where I can save executable snippets (shelling out to things or making RPCs to services) in a smalltalk-like browser, and it looks like this might work. I tried Amber a few months back, but couldn't figure out how to get node to shell out, so I went back to TCL+tk.
bthornbury 9y ago
FYI: Theres a large margin of empty space on the left on safari OSX, requiring horizontal scroll to see the site.
- kwhitefoot 9y ago
  And on Firefox 45.6 ESR on Debian.
- robertkrahn01 9y ago
  Thanks, will be fixed!
karlmcguire 9y ago
Slightly tangential question: why call it "lively.next" ? What is the .next? I understand including a ".tld" in a name when the TLD is part of the domain name, but "lively dot next" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue and .next isn't even an available TLD?
- robertkrahn01 9y ago
  Hoping it will be one at some point :) We first wanted lively.web but then came the .web tld disaster . .next was chosen b/c there were / are several versions of Lively over the years with version numbers LivelyKernel 2 [1], Lively4 [2], etc. lively.next should simply signal that this is the ongoing and evolving project in the Lively family. [1] https://lively-web.org https://lively-web.org [2] https://github.com/LivelyKernel/lively4-core https://github.com/LivelyKernel/lively4-core
jryan49 9y ago
Seeing this brings back the question that always pops up when seeing smalltalk-esque IDEs; why don't these ever take off? Maybe they aren't solving a specific problem someone has and are being too general? Not flexible enough? Maybe someone who has tried out these systems to solve a specific problem can comment?
- erikj 9y ago
  I guess people are just married to their customized Vim, Emacs, Visual Studio etc. setups which they are using for many years. These Smalltalk-related IDEs are too different and break a lot of old habits.
  - robertkrahn01 9y ago
    I was myself a fairly dedicated emacs user and what I like so much about the Lively UI is that you a) get all the programmability and customizability that you have e.g. with elisp (all the stuff on the screen can be programmed, keybindings, windows, everything down to the characters in texts) while b) get a user interface that is way more powerful than simple text. It's easy to embed images and interactive objects into normal texts allowing things to be more interactive to use. It's easy to plot and visualize data (interactively, not just a static screen), e.g. see the plotly morph in the partsbin. There is a sketch morph in the PartsBin as well, allowing you to sketch and take handwritten notes, I use this in combination with Astropad. Etc. All that stuff makes the environment much more convenient to use for general content creation, not just programming.
- robertkrahn01 9y ago
  Something that is not to underestimate is the amount of work it takes to support various kinds of content and programming languages nicely in this form. To get the most from it you want some kind of runtime integration to get feedback (errors completion) or at least good type system support integrated. It's interesting to watch a project like Atom grow – the plugin system they have is nice but ultimately the kinds of interaction they support with it are only text based. I think, in order to have a Smalltalk-like IDE take off, one needs to have similar support for extensions while allowing those to be easily integrated with richer tools like inspectors and debuggers.
rmbeard 9y ago
How hard is it to get this to work with something other than Javascript?
- robertkrahn01 9y ago
  Not very hard. Two years ago we did something similar for Clojure: http://cloxp.github.io/cloxp-intro.html http://cloxp.github.io/cloxp-intro.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQvvgzvPgQI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQvvgzvPgQI We are currently evaluating options for getting this stuff funded and Python would be a another target language / platform.
  - rmbeard 9y ago
    Thanks, I was particularly wondering about Python and R. Will try this out anyway.
  - e12e 9y ago
    I can see python being very useful for this, but perhaps ruby would be a better fit? I can't help but wonder if lively.next+ruby on the truffle vm might not be able to steal a lot of attention, and kick off a bit of an "old-style" / message-passing object oriented revival... One can hope... On The other hand, zope/zodb did manage to get pretty far wrt "magically persistent" object graphs for python.
mjcohen 9y ago
Can this be run on a non-connected chromebook?
- robertkrahn01 9y ago
  We have not added support for this yet but there is no reason why it shouldn't be possible. Generally, the serialized objects can be synchronized into the browser's indexdb (we use pouchdb in the background so this is pretty straightforward) and together with a service worker and some caching this is doable.
aryehof 9y ago
I really want to try this, but it doesn't progress from "loading" on my iPad.
- robertkrahn01 9y ago
  Will look into it. For now, most of the UI is geared towards mouse and keyboard, however. I can recommend Astropad [1] or some similar app, I regularly use it and Lively for sketching and notes. [1] https://astropad.com/ https://astropad.com/

68 points by MichaelAO 9y ago

nasso 9y ago

That frontpage uses alot of words to say absolutely nothing... Someone care to tl;dr what this is?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

anotheryou 9y ago

Another semi-graphical live programming environment I guess. I'm still hoping for http://witheve.com/ http://witheve.com/ to take off :) Lively reminds me of TouchDesigner (node based programming with a focus on visuals) http://derivative.ca/events/2017/AlienCovenant/ http://derivative.ca/events/2017/AlienCovenant/

stutonk 9y ago

This appears to be a system in the Smalltalk lineage but based on Node and JavaScript and currently seems only to target MacOS. It uses Self/Smalltalk's UI system and is based on ideas by Alan Kay (of Xerox PARC fame and one of the creators of Smalltalk). The web interface looks and feels similar to a web-capable Smalltalk variant called Lively Kernel[1] but in a less-mature state of development and with more of a focus on text. 1) https://lively-kernel.org/ https://lively-kernel.org/

robertkrahn01 9y ago

Author here. lively.next is a runtime and development environment. It comes with a graphical user interface and programming tools that allow you to program similarly to Smalltalk and Self, i.e. instead of a edit-compile-run cycle you have an ever running "program" and change various parts of it directly. With that you have access to runtime objects that you can inspect, use for code completion, or modify. Apart from the UI (inspired by Self's Morphic [1]), lively.next implements a meta system on top of normal JavaScript that makes such things possible as to hold on and inspect system state (variables defined inside a module, mechanisms for redefining things etc). Also, lively.next runs on any JS system and it's various packages can be embedded, e.g. to create a programming environment for node.js and other such things. The Lively project evolved over time and lively.next is the newest version: - https://www.lively-kernel.org https://www.lively-kernel.org is from the Sun Labs / HPI days (check out the ancient http://sunlabs-kernel.lively-web.org http://sunlabs-kernel.lively-web.org, fully SVG based rendering) - Lively Web: https://lively-web.org https://lively-web.org A live, programmable wiki (2012-2015) - lively.next since 2016 https://lively-next.org https://lively-next.org. [1] http://ftp.squeak.org/docs/Self-4.0-UI-Framework.pdf http://ftp.squeak.org/docs/Self-4.0-UI-Framework.pdf

skybrian 9y ago
This sounds interesting for personal use, but I'm curious about how you share programs with people who aren't running the whole lively environment? What does that look like?
- robertkrahn01 9y ago
  There are two parts to this: a) How to user graphical constructions (we call them parts) outside of the main framework? We currently work on ways to "snapshot" them in a way that they include all their dependencies. So not just the object (graph) state but really all code dependencies. es6 modules are a big help here since they allow to trace dependencies statically. This is work in progress and we will post updates about this. The state right now is that you can the HTML view of morphs into web pages, e.g. see [2] b) Several parts of the system can be used standalone, e.g. you can enable support for Lively tooling in node.js processes or arbitrary webpages. See https://lively-next.org/worlds/lively-2-webpage https://lively-next.org/worlds/lively-2-webpage for a bookmarklet that loads the lively.vm [1] and lively-system-interface on a arbitrary web page: https://imgur.com/a/2foGR https://imgur.com/a/2foGR. This allows you to then use the workspaces, system browser, inspectors, etc. on remote targets. [1] https://livelykernel.github.io/lively.vm/ https://livelykernel.github.io/lively.vm/ [2] https://lively-next.org/worlds/lively.next%20website https://lively-next.org/worlds/lively.next%20website
oddthink 9y ago
Thanks for the links. I've been looking for something where I can save executable snippets (shelling out to things or making RPCs to services) in a smalltalk-like browser, and it looks like this might work. I tried Amber a few months back, but couldn't figure out how to get node to shell out, so I went back to TCL+tk.

bthornbury 9y ago

FYI: Theres a large margin of empty space on the left on safari OSX, requiring horizontal scroll to see the site.

kwhitefoot 9y ago
And on Firefox 45.6 ESR on Debian.
robertkrahn01 9y ago
Thanks, will be fixed!

karlmcguire 9y ago

Slightly tangential question: why call it "lively.next" ? What is the .next? I understand including a ".tld" in a name when the TLD is part of the domain name, but "lively dot next" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue and .next isn't even an available TLD?

robertkrahn01 9y ago
Hoping it will be one at some point :) We first wanted lively.web but then came the .web tld disaster . .next was chosen b/c there were / are several versions of Lively over the years with version numbers LivelyKernel 2 [1], Lively4 [2], etc. lively.next should simply signal that this is the ongoing and evolving project in the Lively family. [1] https://lively-web.org https://lively-web.org [2] https://github.com/LivelyKernel/lively4-core https://github.com/LivelyKernel/lively4-core

jryan49 9y ago

Seeing this brings back the question that always pops up when seeing smalltalk-esque IDEs; why don't these ever take off? Maybe they aren't solving a specific problem someone has and are being too general? Not flexible enough? Maybe someone who has tried out these systems to solve a specific problem can comment?

erikj 9y ago
I guess people are just married to their customized Vim, Emacs, Visual Studio etc. setups which they are using for many years. These Smalltalk-related IDEs are too different and break a lot of old habits.
- robertkrahn01 9y ago
  I was myself a fairly dedicated emacs user and what I like so much about the Lively UI is that you a) get all the programmability and customizability that you have e.g. with elisp (all the stuff on the screen can be programmed, keybindings, windows, everything down to the characters in texts) while b) get a user interface that is way more powerful than simple text. It's easy to embed images and interactive objects into normal texts allowing things to be more interactive to use. It's easy to plot and visualize data (interactively, not just a static screen), e.g. see the plotly morph in the partsbin. There is a sketch morph in the PartsBin as well, allowing you to sketch and take handwritten notes, I use this in combination with Astropad. Etc. All that stuff makes the environment much more convenient to use for general content creation, not just programming.
robertkrahn01 9y ago
Something that is not to underestimate is the amount of work it takes to support various kinds of content and programming languages nicely in this form. To get the most from it you want some kind of runtime integration to get feedback (errors completion) or at least good type system support integrated. It's interesting to watch a project like Atom grow – the plugin system they have is nice but ultimately the kinds of interaction they support with it are only text based. I think, in order to have a Smalltalk-like IDE take off, one needs to have similar support for extensions while allowing those to be easily integrated with richer tools like inspectors and debuggers.

rmbeard 9y ago

How hard is it to get this to work with something other than Javascript?

robertkrahn01 9y ago
Not very hard. Two years ago we did something similar for Clojure: http://cloxp.github.io/cloxp-intro.html http://cloxp.github.io/cloxp-intro.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQvvgzvPgQI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQvvgzvPgQI We are currently evaluating options for getting this stuff funded and Python would be a another target language / platform.
- rmbeard 9y ago
  Thanks, I was particularly wondering about Python and R. Will try this out anyway.
- e12e 9y ago
  I can see python being very useful for this, but perhaps ruby would be a better fit? I can't help but wonder if lively.next+ruby on the truffle vm might not be able to steal a lot of attention, and kick off a bit of an "old-style" / message-passing object oriented revival... One can hope... On The other hand, zope/zodb did manage to get pretty far wrt "magically persistent" object graphs for python.

mjcohen 9y ago

Can this be run on a non-connected chromebook?

robertkrahn01 9y ago
We have not added support for this yet but there is no reason why it shouldn't be possible. Generally, the serialized objects can be synchronized into the browser's indexdb (we use pouchdb in the background so this is pretty straightforward) and together with a service worker and some caching this is doable.

aryehof 9y ago

I really want to try this, but it doesn't progress from "loading" on my iPad.

robertkrahn01 9y ago
Will look into it. For now, most of the UI is geared towards mouse and keyboard, however. I can recommend Astropad [1] or some similar app, I regularly use it and Lively for sketching and notes. [1] https://astropad.com/ https://astropad.com/