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Light Table Is On Kickstarter

619 points by ibdknox 15y ago

speg 15y ago
I hate when pledges don't include the lower rewards. How can I get a t-shirt and a license?
- mey 15y ago
  A few recent vets have indicated the issues with having rollups of previous tiers See http://zefrank.tumblr.com/post/20122841731/kickstarter-post-mortem http://zefrank.tumblr.com/post/20122841731/kickstarter-post-... "Be careful with waterfalling rewards (having each category include all previous ones) — We had t-shirts in too many tiers; and they ended up being one of the most expensive rewards"
  - ibdknox 15y ago
    This was the thing I was worried about. Both in terms of the cost in time, shipping, and materials. That being said, if people really want t-shirts we'll find another, better way to make that happen :D
    - leviathant 15y ago
      Doing tshirts seems like a simple way to raise cash or reward people, until you've done tshirts for the first time. Making sure you have a quality product, handling inventory and fulfillment, if you've never managed physical products before, it can be overwhelming, and I've seen that bite people in the ass. I pre-sold tshirts to fund a music news website about ten years ago. I only sold about 35 shirts, but given that I was in school and working two part time jobs in addition to keeping my site going as a hobby, I found even fulfilling just those 35 shirts to be way more work than I really wanted, and I haven't bothered selling shirts since. Although after everything was mailed off, I did make enough to cover hosting for pretty decent amount of time.
      - jaredsohn 15y ago
        Could the overwhelming aspects be automated? I can see where you would need to design the initial shirt and verify its quality, but isn't the rest just exporting a portion of your database and giving it to a t-shirt printer that ships? (or maybe they don't do that for you?) Or is the problem that people are manually doing something that cafepress or zazzle provide might provide?
      - smackfu 15y ago
        Of course, selling t-shirts for $30 should make a lot of that pain acceptable.
        TillE 15y ago
        After subtracting the cost of the shirt, shipping, and your time, that leaves you with what, $10 each? It's not terrible, but it's nowhere near as efficient as selling digital goods.
icco 15y ago
Does anyone else find it awkward to back a project where the person running the project has never backed another project? I'm stoked about this project, It's just a feeling I've noticed consistently when looking at Kickstarter campaigns.
- brehaut 15y ago
  kickstarters are not the sole way people contribute to projects and communities. ibdknox has created some very popular (in the clojure community anyway) software (noir, korma etc) that a lot of people build on top of. Surely this should count for something.
  - icco 15y ago
    Oh for sure, I was just curious about people and the platform. It's the only listed metric below a creators name, so if you didn't know who he was, it would be hard to verify. That being said, I've already donated to this.
- waterlesscloud 15y ago
  You shouldn't be downvoted. It's a completely legitimate point to make. Kickstarters from people who don't contribute back is something that happens all the time. In this particular case this one is from someone who contributes to the community in other ways, but that's certainly not always the case.
ulugbek 15y ago
one of those times when continually clicking "refresh" is fun.
- oskarth 15y ago
  Woaha, that's a see-to-believe it. From $800 to $2 000+ in the time it took me to skim a couple of HN comments.
  - ulugbek 15y ago
    I am super excited, I have been doing backend development with rails and been kind of intimidated moving into doing more front-end stuff. I think LT is the answer.
grandalf 15y ago
I was hoping it'd be open sourced. On the other hand, maybe Chris will do amazing things if he has the ability to work full time on light table.
- ibdknox 15y ago
  It is - look at the questions at the bottom.
- rbxbx 15y ago
  ahem 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, while some of the plugins may remained closed source. At some level, this is an experiment in how open source and business can mix - it will be educational for us all.
  - jurre 15y ago
    Yes, but the rewards also mention a license, that will apparently be based on 'pay what you think it's worth'. It all seems very vague to me and I'm not sure how it all will work. Might just be me though.
    - endlessvoid94 15y ago
      This is what investing is like.
  - nzmsv 15y ago
    To me "once it's launched" means it's a cathedral design where no one will see what's going on with the project until some future date. I'd prefer it if third-party contributions were allowed right away, and I'd be completely fine with only the core developers being paid. I think getting early feedback from users who care enough to contribute would be invaluable here.
  - 15y ago
Impossible 15y ago
I really want to back this but $100 is pretty steep for beta access. Even $50 is a little pricey for a tool that I like the goals of, but find it unlikely that I'll use it for a commercial product anytime soon. Any chance you could move around the reward tiers? Maybe I'm just spoiled from spending $15-$20 on Kickstarter games and getting beta access, but as long as Light Table looks like an awesome toy instead of something I can build commercial software with it's hard to justify dropping $100 on it. That said I'll probably throw in $50.
- johns 15y ago
  For developer tools you use every day, I think $100 is a relatively small amount and in line with what a lot of text editors and IDEs charge for (and less than many of them).
  - fuzzythinker 15y ago
    Agree as well, too risky for $100 that there isn't even a alpha to try out. $50 and I may bite.
  - fishtoaster 15y ago
    For a real product, yes. For a product that doesn't exist yet, may turn to vaporware, may be buggy, may end up poorly designed, may be unusably slow, might not be able to operate as well as described, etc etc, $100 might seem a bit steep.
    - frio 15y ago
      Perhaps, but part of this is demonstrating the demand for a product of this kind. If Chris reaches the goal for funding, but fails to release a product, hopefully the fact he managed to raise that much cash will indicate to someone else - Microsoft, IntelliJ, Eclipse developers - that there is real money to be made in reinventing the IDE. I don't see it as chipping in $100 for Lighttable itself (which I do want), I see it as showing there is a very real demand for new thinking in IDE-land.
    - 15y ago
jamesaguilar 15y ago
I am considering contributing but I don't have a sense of how long my vision needs to be. Do you have any sense of when a working alpha would ship?
- oskarth 15y ago
  Looking at the shopping cart [0] it looks like august 2012 for earliest testing, october 2012 for pre-beta and december 2012 for betas. All estimated dates, naturally. 0: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/306316578/light-table/pledge/new?backing[amount]=100.0&backing[backer_reward_id]=605208&clicked_reward=true&logged_in=false http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/306316578/light-table/pl...
- siganakis 15y ago
  From the pledge section: $50 gets you access in May 2013 $100 gets you access in December 2012 $200 gets you access in October 2012 $500 gets you access in August 2012 $1000+ gets you access in May
  - jamesaguilar 15y ago
    Ok, I will probably hold off on contributing then. I had alpha access for Sublime Text 2 for $60, and that seems reasonable to me. A $50 400 day pre-order is a little more than I can handle.
siganakis 15y ago
So the product will be open source, but you need a license to download it? So its open source, but not "free". Are there any well known licenses that support this? I take it that it also means that the license will not allow for you to copy / redistribute Light Table? Does it still really qualify as open source then? Will they allow for contributors to the core of the product and if so, what rights do contributors need to sign away? That said, I think its an awesome project!
- deleted 15y ago
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- jaredsohn 15y ago
  In some ways it sounds like the Microsoft "Shared Source" where you are able to view the code for some of their commercial products for debugging purposes but not redistribute it. One concern is they mention that it will make use of existing open source software; presumably they mean more BSD-style code or LGPL code rather than GPL code since the license they are proposing seems incompatible with the GPL.
- cmelbye 15y ago
  Atlassian uses a model similar to what you're describing. If you buy a license, you get access to the source code, but you can't redistribute that source code. I don't know if that can really be considered (as the author refers it) "open source" though...
- almost 15y ago
  This is pretty important to me too. $50 isn't much at all for something as important as an editor but I don't think I'd consider switching if it wasn't GPL or MIT (or similar). But of course it's important that they be able to make money too, I wonder how that could work. Will pledge my $50 later today, I'll probably never switch from Emacs but I do want to see where this goes! Id make it 100 though if they promised to (properly) open source the core and the language plugins. Maybe that could be one of the things promised if they exceed their funding target?
deleted 15y ago
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mwsherman 15y ago
I’d like to know what he plans to do with $200,000. Is he staffing up a company?
- ibdknox 15y ago
  It'll take more than just me. It'll be a team effort.
  - bprater 15y ago
    $200k feels like a pretty random number -- and maybe even a bit high. Draw people into your story and elaborate on where the $200k will go. What kind of a team are you going to put together? A team of 8? A team of 2? Water-front office space? Time share private helicopter? This is the moment to really create momentum for the project -- if I were in your shoes, I'd spend a bunch of time today really refining the project details on Kickstarter. (Other successful Kickstarter projects might provide some great ideas.)
    - deleted 15y ago
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  - mwsherman 15y ago
    Cool, I have no doubt it’ll require a team. Offer a few more specifics on the Kickstarter page. How many people? Time frame? I say this to help your efforts – more specifics mean more likely support, imho.
  - muyuu 15y ago
    The goal for this one was 400k : http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1613260297/shadowrun-returns http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1613260297/shadowrun-ret... The point being, that you should lower the goal and the main milestone. Esp. as long as you don't have a team to show... if there's interest it can go up many times over your goal anyway. People would ignore the goals if they can get something compelling from their individual deals.
- gavanwoolery 15y ago
pluies_public 15y ago
I might have overlooked it, but it doesn't seem to say which OS Light Table will run on? I would back it up for Linux, for example, but a Windows version wouldn't be useful for me.
- ibdknox 15y ago
  It'll support windows/linux/mac
  - pluies_public 15y ago
    Thanks for the quick reply ibdknox! It might be useful to include it on the kickstarter page too?
  - danielpal 15y ago
    This is too much. I've never seen an editor that runs well on the 3 of them. If you had said Mac or just Linux, I could believe you. I am really interested, but I am afraid of this becoming vaporware.
    - mds101 15y ago
      You should try out Sublime Text. I have used it on all three platforms and it works pretty much the same on all of them.
      - teejae 15y ago
        Agreed. One reason I use it is BECAUSE it runs the same across all platforms, and is the slickest editor on all of them. I do development in multiple OS/environments daily.
    - moondev 15y ago
      http://www.sublimetext.com http://www.sublimetext.com
    - esmevane 15y ago
      Are you saying that Sublime Text doesn't run well on Windows? I know it runs just fine on Mac and Linux.
deleted 15y ago
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SatvikBeri 15y ago
I signed up on Kickstarter just for Light Table. Now I can't wait until December!
moondev 15y ago
So will this be a native app or will it need to be run inside the browser? I'm guessing the prototype was a web app but the final product will be native?
- guelo 15y ago
  He has said it will run on top of the browser.
  - moondev 15y ago
    "In order to download the distributions, you'll need a license." Dosen't sound like a web app to me.
    - guelo 15y ago
      I understood it as a piece of software that runs in a browser, not necessarily a webapp. Could be local code that runs in your average browser, could be a stripped down browser that only runs this app, or it could be a native app that includes a webview as it's main interface.
      - moondev 15y ago
        So I guess we don't quite know yet. Will be interesting to see how he implements it! I just can't see myself using something browser-based as an ide but I suppose if it runs in an embedded "webview" that could be best of both worlds.
        dagw 15y ago
        The FAQ on the kickstarter page says: "While it is browser-based, it will packaged in a webview of some kind so that it feels like a normal app."
        AshMokhberi 15y ago
        I really hope they decide to move away from a browser based solution. I have personally toyed with the idea of making a web based IDE for front-end development, and had came across so many issues in my "experiments" that I decided it wasn't worth it. Lets talk about editors.. CodeMirror/Ace as an editor. While both Code Mirror and Ace ( A spin off from Mozilla's Bespin editor ) Have done a very good job, as Marijn Haverbeke ( Code Mirror author ) puts it, of "In-browser code editing made bearable". Neither are smooth / fluid / responsive enough for every/all day coding. If you read http://codemirror.net/doc/internals.html http://codemirror.net/doc/internals.html You will get a good sense of why the browser is a very harsh environment for a code editor to adapt to. Alternatively you can have a play with any one of the tools, that use Code Mirror and Ace. Try to use them for an extended period of time and you will see what I mean. http://jsbin.com ( Code Mirror ) http://c9.io ( Ace Editor ) I love the concept, and I'm going to be making a donation either way. I just hope that they move away from the idea of a browser based editor. Before investing a huge amount of time and energy into it, and end up with an inferior product, largely attributed to the platform it's running on. As a front-end developer, I'm all for making as much as I can browser based / cross platform, and pushing the limits of the browser. But from personal experience the browser isn't the place to be writing the code to do it.
mike 15y ago
Just in case it's useful to anyone else, an HD version of the video (where the code is legible) is available on vimeo here: http://vimeo.com/40281991 http://vimeo.com/40281991
angelixd 15y ago
If the guy is so excited about this concept, has he tried prototyping in as an (emacs/vim/eclipse/etc.) plugin? And if not, why? It seems that at least a few of those features could be shown off before he goes asking for $200K.
- jurre 15y ago
  Yes, he has a working prototype, check the video.
ForrestN 15y ago
I think the kickstarter page could be improved. More details about the money and why you need it, what our donation will accomplish aside from the vague message about how more people get things done faster. How much are you paying yourself? How many other people? More information about the end product (people are asking about OS for example), the timeline, and you and your qualifications to run the project. I gather you have been programming for a long time and work at Microsoft, but that doesn't prove you'll be able to deliver. For all I know you're a famous hacker, but not knowing that, not knowing if I can use the end product or when I will get it, and not being given a simple, compelling argument (rather than a detailed description of the idea) makes me less interested in participating. That said I love the idea and really hope you are successful!
- mark_l_watson 15y ago
  To your question: Chris is very talented and well known in the Clojure space: I use a few of his open source projects, good stuff.
  - Tuna-Fish 15y ago
    Yes, but that should be on the Kickstarter page.
- ibdknox 15y ago
  I just added this: And why should we believe you can deliver? I've been programming professionally for 8 years, during which I've built websites large and small (puma.com, newbalance.com, etc), helped design the future of Visual Studio, and released numerous open source libraries and frameworks. While at Microsoft I was the Program Manager for the C# and VB IDE where I spent countless hours behind a one way mirror learning how people develop things. Since then I've steeped myself in the world of startups and OSS. I worked with the guys at ReadyForZero to build readyforzero.com, created the Noir web framework, built the SQL abstraction layer Korma, and released a host of ClojureScript libraries to make client side development a breeze - many of which are now featured in the canonical books for Clojure. Even more recently, I built Bret Victor's live game editor after watching his inspiring "Inventing on Principle" talk. I have a history of building useful software and a hunger for making developers more efficient, as well as experience leading and shaping the the future of a billion dollar project.
frio 15y ago
I'll happily chip in some money, but having read recently about how Star Command's money burnt down (http://www.1up.com/news/star-command-kickstarter-funding-quickly-disappear http://www.1up.com/news/star-command-kickstarter-funding-qui...) I suspect you might have shot yourself in the foot a bit by offering the t-shirts at such a cheap rate. Either way, I've put some cash in the pot :).
collypops 15y ago
I'm not upset that higher pledge tiers don't include the rewards of previous tiers. This is not always cost effective, especially when you factor in T-shirt production and whatnot. I do believe however that the higher levels should give more value to the backer, where value can be reasonable calculated. Specifically, I take issue with the higher of these two tiers: > PLEDGE $1,000 OR MORE - 10 licenses of Light Table and acknowledgement as a backer of the project. > PLEDGE $5,000 OR MORE - 25 licenses of Light Table and acknowledgement as a sponsor of the project. How can a pledging 5x the amount of the previous tier give you only 2.5x the value?
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- daniel_solano 15y ago
  You get to be a 'sponsor'. That's obviously twice as good as a 'backer'. Honestly, I have no idea. In the end, these levels are primarily oriented at companies or other groups (education?), not individuals. What's one person going to do with 25 licenses?
- Scriptor 15y ago
  Well, you get your logo on the home page for a year, which could be very good advertising if the project becomes big. However, I have no clue how much the advertising would actually be valued for a typical company.
mattdeboard 15y ago
The strength of his past contributions alone is enough to convince me to donate. You can't throw a football in Clojure land without hitting a high-quality contribution of his.
deleted 15y ago
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shortlived 15y ago
If closure is one of the first languages, how easy would it be to support java?
- mey 15y ago
  I am looking forward to Java support as well. I will be backing this project even if it isn't included, but the value in my workflow would be tackling Java.
aiscott 15y ago
The current pricing structure is discouraging backers, in my opinion. You tell us that when it's released it will most likely be pay-what-you-want, but if we pay early and support the project we are pushed into $50. I can guarantee you that if you do pay-what-you-want, your average isn't going to be $50. I don't know what percentage of backers are the kind that do it merely to "support" a project, but I would guess it's not more than 10-15% of all backers for a given project. The rest want some value for their money beyond feeling good about backing. You state you chose $50 for a license because that is what you think it is worth. I think you'll find out that what you think people will pay you for something and what they are willing to pay differs by a factor of 2-3. So most of the people that want what you are going to make, even a little, probably don't want to spend more than $20 or $25. The difference between that and $50 is made up from goodwill, but that's really asking a lot of people. I would recommend making some more tiers between $5 and $50, where everything above $20 gets a license. This way you capture the people that just want the product, and give others the ability to show their goodwill as well. This isn't the kind of project that really needs swag. Nobody really wants a t-shirt. If you do something like promise to list backers (and their associated tiers) in the "credits" of the app, that would probably be great for most people. edit: typos, and wording
- LinXitoW 15y ago
  I think its always hard for software kickstarters to offer anything interesting besides the actual product. As you've said, in this case, even merchandise doesn't really make sense. The only tier, apart from a 15$ software tier(as its been standard), that would make sense to me personally(and financially) would be an option to vote on what language he creates support for first(after he's done with the initial Clojure version).
- latch 15y ago
  Dead horse but, without being able to see upvotes, Chris has no way of knowing if 2 people agree with this or 200. This is a wasted opportunity to help. For what it's worth, I agree, especially on the t-shirt. I stopped reading after $20 because (a) I sure as heck don't want a tshirt and figured everything else would include it, but that doesn't matter because (b) I have no desire to "invest" more.
vibrunazo 15y ago
Should put something like "if we pass the X goal, then it will be truly free, no licensing holding progress back". Then I would be excited to donate :)
- TomasSedovic 15y ago
  I don't mind paying for the software. If it ends up being as cool as it looks, I'll happily part with the cash. But I would love the promise of open source and not open core. Especially since the current description is so vague. "some of the plugins may remained [sic] closed source" What kinds of plugins? Every supported language is a plugin -- will Python or Ruby end up closed? Or the inline HTML rendering? If Chris promised a true commitment to keeping this open, I'd promise to pay up. With Kickstarter, I could even prove it. How about a KS reward that would give me the access to all everything Light Table related that the team builds? Also note that even GPL allows you to sell the software and sell the code separately. Ditto for other licenses. I'd pay for the code. Not sure how viable that actually is, but it's something to consider. Lastly, how's the development going to look like? Are the open source parts going to be done in the open (as most successful open source projects do) or will it be Android-like code dump on the release date?
sev 15y ago
I think the $50 mark to get a license is a little steep. Besides that, the video quality on the Kickstart home page is quite bad; I tried to see what was going on so I put it in full-screen mode and couldn't read anything properly.
lwat 15y ago
The main thing holding me back is the supported languages. I don't use Clojure and I'm not a big enough Javascript fan. Suggestion: Add more languages if you reach enough backing $200k: JS and Clojure $250k: JS, Clojure and C $300k: JS, Clojure, C and ...
- selfoner 15y ago
  I don't use JS much or Clojure at all. If I were the developer, I would look at adding the top used languages post haste: C/C++, Java, Python, Perl, etc. It seems like it might be particularly well suited for HTML5/CSS3 development as well, since it runs in a browser, and that would be great to have.
- shortlived 15y ago
  C would be INCREDIBLE
  - Arelius 15y ago
    C development in this manner isn't a particularly trivial matter. C header compilation and decleration alone complicates this.
    - wladimir 15y ago
      libclang could help a lot here, as it gives access to the internals of a C/C++ compiler all the way from tokenizing to code generation. It also has built-in support for all kinds of IDE features such as code completion and fixit hints.
    - gaius 15y ago
      See http://tenaciousc.com/ http://tenaciousc.com/
    - shortlived 15y ago
      and thus my INCREDIBLE description
swah 15y ago
For a change, I wish this wasn't web-based, but based on Chromium and really fast. (And with a great plugin system).
- ibdknox 15y ago
  It is all of those things :)
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
ibdknox 15y ago
Just added this to the description: If we hit $300k, Python will be the third language to be supported out of the gate.
- Impossible 15y ago
  What would you have to raise to promise Lua support ;)? I imagine Ruby would come in at $400K-$500K.
  - alberth 15y ago
    +1 for Lua I'd donate $500 right now if Lua support will be available in v1. Edit: $500 (originally $100)
    - Tuna-Fish 15y ago
      I rather doubt there will be that much point in that. Based on what he has spoken of the architecture, doing 3rd-party language support should be extraordinarily easy. Putting more languages into v1 will really only push it back -- the actual lua support should probably be done by someone with experience hacking lua.
  - Arelius 15y ago
    Curious, what do you use lua for? Presumably embedded in some fashion? I'd imagine the use case will change drastically based on the target.
- Arelius 15y ago
  Get it out first, if you hit $300K, put Python next on the list, but don't delay release until it's in there. It's just good sense to get something out sooner regardless if you have the finances to support more.
- Devilboy 15y ago
  Sold!
ibdknox 15y ago
Clarification on the closed source plugins: That bit of text was misleading, the plugins that would be closed source are not the ones that would result immediately from this project, but instead domain specific plugins that wouldn't have broad appeal. All the language plugins will be open.
- th 15y ago
  I really think you should clarify the expected terms of the license. I would gladly throw $50 to you if you released this under a MIT (or similar) license. Even if I never switch from vim, I feel my $50 would be well-spent bringing a (hopefully) awesome free IDE into the world. If this isn't actually free software but only open source, I still might purchase a license for myself, but I think it's fair that this is mentioned upfront.
politician 15y ago
I've thrown some of mine into the pot. As a Clojure apprentice, I'm eager to see the beta. However, I honestly doubt that some of the desired languages are even possible - C, really? Even JS seems dubious.
- tubbo 15y ago
  the javascript console in most browsers and JSLint already do this to some degree, Light Table just has to automate it. same goes for Ruby (IRB and ruby -S)
duaneb 15y ago
$50 is way too much, especially since I don't use javascript or clojure and I don't see myself switching... ever. If there was C support or even python, then it would much much less of a risk for my money.
- ibdknox 15y ago
  Python will come in at $300k, but one thing to keep in mind is that it is a highly extensible and completely open platform. There's no reason we have to be the ones to add support for all languages.
lsiebert 15y ago
If it's written in Javascript based on code mirrorand the only thing closed source are a few plugins not related to the actual language plugins, then it should be fairly easy to roll a package with chromium or Firefox built around it. I expect a few show HN posts. I also hope for hosted solutions, and licensing for students. This seems like an excellent way to learn a language. I think we will see done aspects turned into plugins and add ons for existing IDEs but that is not the same as building this intentionally from the ground up. If you can have function reference lookup, for example, and if it's built in Javascript, you can probably build in other forms of reference already on the Web. Pervasive passive information that you would normally have to search for.
james33 15y ago
I was really anticipating this Kickstarter campaign to start, but the pledge levels are a real downer. I don't mind paying $50 to get the licensee, but I should get beta access for that. This project looks really cool, but essentially preordering something over a year in advance (and lets face it, these timelines never actually get met) for the same price or more than you would pay when it is actually released without even getting beta access is somewhat insulting. What incentive do I have to pledge right now?
snprbob86 15y ago
Chris: Just wanted to say "Good luck!" Also, I saw you mentioned a patched Clojure compiler for column information. Did you use my patch? :-) Let me know how I can help with Clojure and ClojureScript contributions. I find working on the compilers to be a lot of fun.
rexreed 15y ago
I'm confused about what Kickstarter will accept for software projects and which ones they won't. My latest project was rejected, but it was also a developer app. What is the guideline for what they will accept?
lsc 15y ago
Just a thought; when I read the title and started reading the description, I thought you were actually selling a giant drafting-table sized LCD. If you wanted to integrate the IDE well with one particular piece of really nice kit, and then tell people that if they donate more than $BIGNUM, they get a nice workstation, all setup and integrated. (just a silly idea. That's probably more of a distraction than you want. But it could be showy.)
shortlived 15y ago
Where can I read more about the implementation details. I'm particularly interested in how well it will work on an "enterprise" app, e.g. 500K loc with some ugly dependencies.
sellingly 15y ago
Very cool, but I had to ask the question: Is this similar to / also based around the Iguana translator? Thread here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3856159 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3856159
nato1138 15y ago
this belongs as a petridish.com -- save kickstarter for the arts!
beefman 15y ago
I just pledged $50. I did it for the license. As I did so, I realized: this must mean Light Table isn't going to be free software. Presumably I'm getting it at a discount for being an investor. Does it adequately compensate me for the risk of buying a nonexistent product? Shouldn't I get some percentage of its profits, if it's not going to be free software after an injection of more than $200K? Does the license give me lifetime upgrades, or only the first version? These were my thoughts as I clicked through the Amazon payment buttons.
- james33 15y ago
  The problem is that it appears that $50 is not a discount on the final price at all, so you really get no added value by pledging money to help him make this a reality more than a year before you'll ever see anything.
  - beefman 15y ago
    He's now added a $15 license option, so I changed my pledge. He hasn't responded about the longevity of the license.
    - james33 15y ago
      Yes, I've now pledged at the $50 level now that he added beta access to that.
Drbble 15y ago
I don't get it. This proposal sounds like Eclipse that exists today plus a couple of small new plugin for the more aspirational bits.
iamtoby2003 15y ago
mmm....if i contribute 10 bucks, i would expect at least a copy of the software. Plus, the UI is not too exciting and their expecation for investment might be abit high IMO
nyrb 15y ago
Was going to pledge the project, but saw "it is browser-based, it will packaged in a webview of some kind so that it feels like a normal app". Nothing wrong with browser-based editor, but I am comfortable with native app. That's my personal preference.
esmevane 15y ago
Without disagreeing with the prevailing opinions on the reward rankings, may I observe that it's interesting how Kickstarter has transformed donations for innovation into a shopping cart experience? So many folks in this thread, myself included, have adopted a stance of "I don't know if pledging this much is worth it!" Well, we don't have to, right? We can just pledge $1 if we like it and want to help a bit. Except we're talking about this product as though it is on sale and priced too high. [edit]: Cleared up language.
- JackC 15y ago
  it's interesting how Kickstarter has transformed donations for innovation into a shopping cart experience I've been going back and forth about this, and I think the phrasing of the particular Kickstarter project controls whether it's more a donation or shopping cart experience. Think about the conversation like this: - "Hey, can you chip in some money so I can spend a bunch of time making a really cool piece of software?" - "Sure, I'd love to! I can spare $25. When do I get to play with your build?" - "Oh, $25 isn't enough for you to access the software. That's just a donation. But you can buy a copy when it comes out." - "..." If the pitch is "chip in what you can, and we'll make a cool thing for everyone," then you set the stage for donations for innovation. If the pitch is "pay enough, and we'll give you a license to our cool thing," then you're offering a shopping cart experience. Which is fine, I use shopping carts all the time, but it's a different and less exciting thing. This is maybe different with physical products -- if there's a cost per product, there obviously needs to be a minimum donation to get one. But with a virtual product, the reason you set a high donation threshold to get a copy is that you're selling a product rather than asking for a donation. Again, that's totally reasonable, but it's not as exciting to be part of. As I keep thinking about it, I think there might be an uncanny valley effect here. If a software company I really like, like the Omni Group or Macromates, said they were doing presales of a revolutionary new product and needed me to buy in so it could get made, I would be psyched to do it. But this is halfway in between -- it's neither "donate to my cool project" nor "pre-order my cool product," but "donate to my cool product." I think that's where our gears start grinding a little. I'm still up in the air about whether to donate to/purchase this one or not. Interesting stuff.
nl 15y ago
$10,000 for a logo (and link?) from the front page of a popular project like this could be pretty cheap SEO. I know Apache (the foundation, not the software) used to have a problem with sponsors who were basically buying links. Apparently sponsoring Apache was cheaper than trying to buy links on comparatively ranked sites. It looks like there could be at least one company on http://www.apache.org/foundation/thanks.html http://www.apache.org/foundation/thanks.html at the moment that still falls into that category.
jurre 15y ago
I feel the part about it being open source is either misleading or your description is just really vague, even after the update. First you mention the core is open source, then you mention we need a license for which we can pay as much as we'd like. Now that last part doesn't seem very open source to me. Fair enough if you want to make money with this, that's your right and I don't think anyone will try to stop you. But don't say it's open source when it's not. Could you explain, if Light Table is released, what will I have to do to obtain a copy? If payment is involved, please explain to me how it is open source. What license will be used (MIT, GPL etc, if you roll your own, please outline the major parts)?
- th 15y ago
  I was confused by this at first also. Open source means you can look at the source code. Sometimes it means more than that (often depending on who is using the term). GNU's criticism of open source: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.h...
Void_ 15y ago
This is no open source. When I saw the Light Table demo, I wanted to build it for CoffeeScript, and I could do it. This morning I found this, I got excited because I could use your interface and create a plugin for CoffeeScript. I was hoping I would be able to simply clone it and start working. Instead I'm asked to pay X dollars to only get access to early beta? > I'm a firm believer in open source Yeah? Then make it open source. Develop it publicly on GitHub. Let people contribute. Don't make them pay. > As such, I believe it only fair that the core of Light Table be open sourced once it is launched. I believe I just gave you hundred dollars. Can I have the beta access now?
- frio 15y ago
  Developing things in the open can be a drag for a product first getting off the ground. People pull in different directions, want different things, and fork the project (and the community) in doing so. I'm a strong believer in free (as in speech) software, but the practicalities of doing so too soon in a product's lifecycle can kill it. Personally, I'm more than happy for them to get the core done properly, and open-source later.
xsace 15y ago
May 2013? I can't wait for so long.
angeladur 15y ago
so the software is opensource, but they are providing official binaries for a Fee. Hmm..very similar to what XChat did a while ago
xlevus 15y ago
Why is the first tangible reward a t-shirt and not the product? If I was going to fund something, I would want to know my money is going to the product and not merchandise. I don't think a YC pitch would go well if they said "And with the first $10k we're going to send out t-shirts to the first 1000 subscribers on the mailing list."
DanBC 15y ago
T-shirt printing, packing, and delivery appears to be an unfilled niche.
eyko 15y ago
I was hoping for an open source project rather than a $200,000 product, but that's just me… Besides, Javascript being the main supported language is a put off to be honest. But there goes my $1.
wxl 15y ago
$200k seems like an awful lot to me. I don't see why you need a massive team to make an IDE. It's not like you're making a game, where you need artists, programmers, composers, etc. All this is is programming.
tsiki 15y ago
Will it have any support for popular JS modularisation libraries like require.js?
JoshMock 15y ago
Not trying to add one more "VIM IS BETTER" comment like happens on every thread about editors, but I have an actual, for-real question: who wants to help make a Vim workalike version of this? Because I would donate to that (in time, meager Vimscript skills, money) in a heartbeat.
- oscully 15y ago
  I'd be very interested in pursuing this. I have some of this functionality already via numerous vim plugins, but not all of it. If I get a free moment in the next couple weeks I'll start writing something up about what already exists and what is missing. Want to mention I think Light Table looks fantastic, but now that I have internalized vim's key bindings I am very hesitant to switch. That said, I still pledged on kickstarter.
ibdknox 15y ago
Just added this update: EDIT: Also, these changes will take effect for everyone who has already pledged at these levels. Though if you could, please switch - if the old ones have 0 pledges I can delete them. Unfortunately I can't change the pricing structure in place, but based on the feedback we've gotten so far I've added a set of new rewards - all of which are better than their previous ones. :) $15 - A license and acknowledgement on the contributor list $50 - A license and early beta access $100 - A license, early beta access, and participation in feedback rounds $200 - Two licenses, pre-beta access, and participation in feedback rounds All the higher rewards will also of course include participation in the feedback rounds. Ultimately, this should address people's concerns of buying something before it exists, but providing the opportunity to be a part of it at a lower price point.
- ovidiu 15y ago
  Much better now. I pledged 50$ for the beta access and license. Good luck!
- james33 15y ago
  Awesome, you sir have just gotten a new pledge! I am much more confident knowing that you'll listen to feedback.
  - sterling312 15y ago
    Just a thought that popped into my head. Assuming that the product issued in the end is going to be the same for everybody. And assume that the highest contributor that gets to put in the feedback generally improves the software. This creates a free loading problem for those who contributed less (myself included) for the same product. Even if it's a positive externality for the general backers, I wonder if there is a way for Kickstarter to properly compensate for such externality.
- speg 15y ago
  The timelines are all messed up now. What's the difference between 'early' and 'pre' beta? Are these still later than the $500 'absolute earliest user testing' pledge? If licences are now down to $15 - shouldn't all the pledges that contained multiple licences be adjusted as well? e.g., the $500 pledge included $200 worth of licences before, but now they are only valued at $60. I understand KickStarter doesn't allow you to change existing rewards, but this is turning into a bit of a confusing mess...
ScotterC 15y ago
With the new early beta access for $50, I'm in.
methodin 15y ago
Anyone have insight into how the tool that shows variables as it passed through functions would work in an extensible "port over the language of your choice" way? Is this reliant on stack tracing/debug tools or more rudimentary methods?
hkuo 15y ago
Just backed and looking forward to trying this out! I just have one question/suggestion just in case it makes sense. My main hesitation with using a browser-based IDE is that with native apps, I can use standard quick-keys to navigate documents very quickly using just the keyboard, such as flipping between documents, jumping my cursor to the beginning or end of a line/document and shift-arrowing/tabbing to make a selection. These are very basic and simple things, but without them, I would have to painfully use my trackpad/mouse to make selections, navigate the cursor around, or switch between documents. Just wondering if you're considering this type of functionality that will let me perform quick and simple actions through keyboard commands.
- ibdknox 15y ago
  I'm a huge vim guy, and killed me to use the mouse as much as I did in the video. The real thing will be shortcuttable to your heart's content :) And all the standard things you would expect to work (like the ones you describe) will definitely be there before the end.
devin 15y ago
I pledged $500. The only reason I'm being public about it is because I see people in here complaining about the cost of a license and wanting their dollars to translate into something more than this project simply becoming a reality. I don't have a barrel full of money by any stretch of the imagination, but given all of the lispers and schemers on Hacker News, pg's essays, and so on, I find it surprising that there would be as much hesitation as there is about paying $50 for some of smalltalk's greatest hits coupled with an environment that lowers the barrier to entry for people to dig into the best modern lisp around. I'm donating because I want to live in a better place, not because I want a license. The cost of not funding a project that could mainstream so many lost and forgotten great ideas while simultaneously promoting some of the best new ones, seems sort of like a crime against the craft of programming in general. I mean no offense, just an observation.
Blunt 15y ago
I'd pledge the full $200K if they would take on C++ immediately. I am so sick and tired of IDEs that suck at delivering solid C++ coding environment. The best tool I've found for the job, to date, is Source Insight.
ameen 15y ago
Thanks for making the change. I just pledged $15 for a license. I'll make good on my promise and spread the word around my networks, and hope others who pledged the least for a license payback in similar ways too. All the best Chris.

619 points by ibdknox 15y ago

speg 15y ago

I hate when pledges don't include the lower rewards. How can I get a t-shirt and a license?

mey 15y ago
A few recent vets have indicated the issues with having rollups of previous tiers See http://zefrank.tumblr.com/post/20122841731/kickstarter-post-mortem http://zefrank.tumblr.com/post/20122841731/kickstarter-post-... "Be careful with waterfalling rewards (having each category include all previous ones) — We had t-shirts in too many tiers; and they ended up being one of the most expensive rewards"
- ibdknox 15y ago
  This was the thing I was worried about. Both in terms of the cost in time, shipping, and materials. That being said, if people really want t-shirts we'll find another, better way to make that happen :D
  - leviathant 15y ago
    Doing tshirts seems like a simple way to raise cash or reward people, until you've done tshirts for the first time. Making sure you have a quality product, handling inventory and fulfillment, if you've never managed physical products before, it can be overwhelming, and I've seen that bite people in the ass. I pre-sold tshirts to fund a music news website about ten years ago. I only sold about 35 shirts, but given that I was in school and working two part time jobs in addition to keeping my site going as a hobby, I found even fulfilling just those 35 shirts to be way more work than I really wanted, and I haven't bothered selling shirts since. Although after everything was mailed off, I did make enough to cover hosting for pretty decent amount of time.
    - jaredsohn 15y ago
      Could the overwhelming aspects be automated? I can see where you would need to design the initial shirt and verify its quality, but isn't the rest just exporting a portion of your database and giving it to a t-shirt printer that ships? (or maybe they don't do that for you?) Or is the problem that people are manually doing something that cafepress or zazzle provide might provide?
    - smackfu 15y ago
      Of course, selling t-shirts for $30 should make a lot of that pain acceptable.
      - TillE 15y ago
        After subtracting the cost of the shirt, shipping, and your time, that leaves you with what, $10 each? It's not terrible, but it's nowhere near as efficient as selling digital goods.

icco 15y ago

Does anyone else find it awkward to back a project where the person running the project has never backed another project? I'm stoked about this project, It's just a feeling I've noticed consistently when looking at Kickstarter campaigns.

brehaut 15y ago
kickstarters are not the sole way people contribute to projects and communities. ibdknox has created some very popular (in the clojure community anyway) software (noir, korma etc) that a lot of people build on top of. Surely this should count for something.
- icco 15y ago
  Oh for sure, I was just curious about people and the platform. It's the only listed metric below a creators name, so if you didn't know who he was, it would be hard to verify. That being said, I've already donated to this.
waterlesscloud 15y ago
You shouldn't be downvoted. It's a completely legitimate point to make. Kickstarters from people who don't contribute back is something that happens all the time. In this particular case this one is from someone who contributes to the community in other ways, but that's certainly not always the case.

ulugbek 15y ago

one of those times when continually clicking "refresh" is fun.

oskarth 15y ago
Woaha, that's a see-to-believe it. From $800 to $2 000+ in the time it took me to skim a couple of HN comments.
- ulugbek 15y ago
  I am super excited, I have been doing backend development with rails and been kind of intimidated moving into doing more front-end stuff. I think LT is the answer.

grandalf 15y ago

I was hoping it'd be open sourced. On the other hand, maybe Chris will do amazing things if he has the ability to work full time on light table.

ibdknox 15y ago
It is - look at the questions at the bottom.
rbxbx 15y ago
ahem 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, while some of the plugins may remained closed source. At some level, this is an experiment in how open source and business can mix - it will be educational for us all.
- jurre 15y ago
  Yes, but the rewards also mention a license, that will apparently be based on 'pay what you think it's worth'. It all seems very vague to me and I'm not sure how it all will work. Might just be me though.
  - endlessvoid94 15y ago
    This is what investing is like.
- nzmsv 15y ago
  To me "once it's launched" means it's a cathedral design where no one will see what's going on with the project until some future date. I'd prefer it if third-party contributions were allowed right away, and I'd be completely fine with only the core developers being paid. I think getting early feedback from users who care enough to contribute would be invaluable here.
- 15y ago

Impossible 15y ago

I really want to back this but $100 is pretty steep for beta access. Even $50 is a little pricey for a tool that I like the goals of, but find it unlikely that I'll use it for a commercial product anytime soon. Any chance you could move around the reward tiers? Maybe I'm just spoiled from spending $15-$20 on Kickstarter games and getting beta access, but as long as Light Table looks like an awesome toy instead of something I can build commercial software with it's hard to justify dropping $100 on it. That said I'll probably throw in $50.

johns 15y ago
For developer tools you use every day, I think $100 is a relatively small amount and in line with what a lot of text editors and IDEs charge for (and less than many of them).
- fuzzythinker 15y ago
  Agree as well, too risky for $100 that there isn't even a alpha to try out. $50 and I may bite.
- fishtoaster 15y ago
  For a real product, yes. For a product that doesn't exist yet, may turn to vaporware, may be buggy, may end up poorly designed, may be unusably slow, might not be able to operate as well as described, etc etc, $100 might seem a bit steep.
  - frio 15y ago
    Perhaps, but part of this is demonstrating the demand for a product of this kind. If Chris reaches the goal for funding, but fails to release a product, hopefully the fact he managed to raise that much cash will indicate to someone else - Microsoft, IntelliJ, Eclipse developers - that there is real money to be made in reinventing the IDE. I don't see it as chipping in $100 for Lighttable itself (which I do want), I see it as showing there is a very real demand for new thinking in IDE-land.
  - 15y ago

jamesaguilar 15y ago

I am considering contributing but I don't have a sense of how long my vision needs to be. Do you have any sense of when a working alpha would ship?

oskarth 15y ago
Looking at the shopping cart [0] it looks like august 2012 for earliest testing, october 2012 for pre-beta and december 2012 for betas. All estimated dates, naturally. 0: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/306316578/light-table/pledge/new?backing[amount]=100.0&backing[backer_reward_id]=605208&clicked_reward=true&logged_in=false http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/306316578/light-table/pl...
siganakis 15y ago
From the pledge section: $50 gets you access in May 2013 $100 gets you access in December 2012 $200 gets you access in October 2012 $500 gets you access in August 2012 $1000+ gets you access in May
- jamesaguilar 15y ago
  Ok, I will probably hold off on contributing then. I had alpha access for Sublime Text 2 for $60, and that seems reasonable to me. A $50 400 day pre-order is a little more than I can handle.

siganakis 15y ago

So the product will be open source, but you need a license to download it? So its open source, but not "free". Are there any well known licenses that support this? I take it that it also means that the license will not allow for you to copy / redistribute Light Table? Does it still really qualify as open source then? Will they allow for contributors to the core of the product and if so, what rights do contributors need to sign away? That said, I think its an awesome project!

deleted 15y ago
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jaredsohn 15y ago
In some ways it sounds like the Microsoft "Shared Source" where you are able to view the code for some of their commercial products for debugging purposes but not redistribute it. One concern is they mention that it will make use of existing open source software; presumably they mean more BSD-style code or LGPL code rather than GPL code since the license they are proposing seems incompatible with the GPL.
cmelbye 15y ago
Atlassian uses a model similar to what you're describing. If you buy a license, you get access to the source code, but you can't redistribute that source code. I don't know if that can really be considered (as the author refers it) "open source" though...
almost 15y ago
This is pretty important to me too. $50 isn't much at all for something as important as an editor but I don't think I'd consider switching if it wasn't GPL or MIT (or similar). But of course it's important that they be able to make money too, I wonder how that could work. Will pledge my $50 later today, I'll probably never switch from Emacs but I do want to see where this goes! Id make it 100 though if they promised to (properly) open source the core and the language plugins. Maybe that could be one of the things promised if they exceed their funding target?

deleted 15y ago

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mwsherman 15y ago

I’d like to know what he plans to do with $200,000. Is he staffing up a company?

ibdknox 15y ago
It'll take more than just me. It'll be a team effort.
- bprater 15y ago
  $200k feels like a pretty random number -- and maybe even a bit high. Draw people into your story and elaborate on where the $200k will go. What kind of a team are you going to put together? A team of 8? A team of 2? Water-front office space? Time share private helicopter? This is the moment to really create momentum for the project -- if I were in your shoes, I'd spend a bunch of time today really refining the project details on Kickstarter. (Other successful Kickstarter projects might provide some great ideas.)
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
- mwsherman 15y ago
  Cool, I have no doubt it’ll require a team. Offer a few more specifics on the Kickstarter page. How many people? Time frame? I say this to help your efforts – more specifics mean more likely support, imho.
- muyuu 15y ago
  The goal for this one was 400k : http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1613260297/shadowrun-returns http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1613260297/shadowrun-ret... The point being, that you should lower the goal and the main milestone. Esp. as long as you don't have a team to show... if there's interest it can go up many times over your goal anyway. People would ignore the goals if they can get something compelling from their individual deals.
gavanwoolery 15y ago

pluies_public 15y ago

I might have overlooked it, but it doesn't seem to say which OS Light Table will run on? I would back it up for Linux, for example, but a Windows version wouldn't be useful for me.

ibdknox 15y ago
It'll support windows/linux/mac
- pluies_public 15y ago
  Thanks for the quick reply ibdknox! It might be useful to include it on the kickstarter page too?
- danielpal 15y ago
  This is too much. I've never seen an editor that runs well on the 3 of them. If you had said Mac or just Linux, I could believe you. I am really interested, but I am afraid of this becoming vaporware.
  - mds101 15y ago
    You should try out Sublime Text. I have used it on all three platforms and it works pretty much the same on all of them.
    - teejae 15y ago
      Agreed. One reason I use it is BECAUSE it runs the same across all platforms, and is the slickest editor on all of them. I do development in multiple OS/environments daily.
  - moondev 15y ago
    http://www.sublimetext.com http://www.sublimetext.com
  - esmevane 15y ago
    Are you saying that Sublime Text doesn't run well on Windows? I know it runs just fine on Mac and Linux.

deleted 15y ago

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SatvikBeri 15y ago

I signed up on Kickstarter just for Light Table. Now I can't wait until December!

moondev 15y ago

So will this be a native app or will it need to be run inside the browser? I'm guessing the prototype was a web app but the final product will be native?

guelo 15y ago
He has said it will run on top of the browser.
- moondev 15y ago
  "In order to download the distributions, you'll need a license." Dosen't sound like a web app to me.
  - guelo 15y ago
    I understood it as a piece of software that runs in a browser, not necessarily a webapp. Could be local code that runs in your average browser, could be a stripped down browser that only runs this app, or it could be a native app that includes a webview as it's main interface.
    - moondev 15y ago
      So I guess we don't quite know yet. Will be interesting to see how he implements it! I just can't see myself using something browser-based as an ide but I suppose if it runs in an embedded "webview" that could be best of both worlds.
      - dagw 15y ago
        The FAQ on the kickstarter page says: "While it is browser-based, it will packaged in a webview of some kind so that it feels like a normal app."
        AshMokhberi 15y ago
        I really hope they decide to move away from a browser based solution. I have personally toyed with the idea of making a web based IDE for front-end development, and had came across so many issues in my "experiments" that I decided it wasn't worth it. Lets talk about editors.. CodeMirror/Ace as an editor. While both Code Mirror and Ace ( A spin off from Mozilla's Bespin editor ) Have done a very good job, as Marijn Haverbeke ( Code Mirror author ) puts it, of "In-browser code editing made bearable". Neither are smooth / fluid / responsive enough for every/all day coding. If you read http://codemirror.net/doc/internals.html http://codemirror.net/doc/internals.html You will get a good sense of why the browser is a very harsh environment for a code editor to adapt to. Alternatively you can have a play with any one of the tools, that use Code Mirror and Ace. Try to use them for an extended period of time and you will see what I mean. http://jsbin.com ( Code Mirror ) http://c9.io ( Ace Editor ) I love the concept, and I'm going to be making a donation either way. I just hope that they move away from the idea of a browser based editor. Before investing a huge amount of time and energy into it, and end up with an inferior product, largely attributed to the platform it's running on. As a front-end developer, I'm all for making as much as I can browser based / cross platform, and pushing the limits of the browser. But from personal experience the browser isn't the place to be writing the code to do it.

mike 15y ago

Just in case it's useful to anyone else, an HD version of the video (where the code is legible) is available on vimeo here: http://vimeo.com/40281991 http://vimeo.com/40281991

angelixd 15y ago

If the guy is so excited about this concept, has he tried prototyping in as an (emacs/vim/eclipse/etc.) plugin? And if not, why? It seems that at least a few of those features could be shown off before he goes asking for $200K.

jurre 15y ago
Yes, he has a working prototype, check the video.

ForrestN 15y ago

I think the kickstarter page could be improved. More details about the money and why you need it, what our donation will accomplish aside from the vague message about how more people get things done faster. How much are you paying yourself? How many other people? More information about the end product (people are asking about OS for example), the timeline, and you and your qualifications to run the project. I gather you have been programming for a long time and work at Microsoft, but that doesn't prove you'll be able to deliver. For all I know you're a famous hacker, but not knowing that, not knowing if I can use the end product or when I will get it, and not being given a simple, compelling argument (rather than a detailed description of the idea) makes me less interested in participating. That said I love the idea and really hope you are successful!

mark_l_watson 15y ago
To your question: Chris is very talented and well known in the Clojure space: I use a few of his open source projects, good stuff.
- Tuna-Fish 15y ago
  Yes, but that should be on the Kickstarter page.
ibdknox 15y ago
I just added this: And why should we believe you can deliver? I've been programming professionally for 8 years, during which I've built websites large and small (puma.com, newbalance.com, etc), helped design the future of Visual Studio, and released numerous open source libraries and frameworks. While at Microsoft I was the Program Manager for the C# and VB IDE where I spent countless hours behind a one way mirror learning how people develop things. Since then I've steeped myself in the world of startups and OSS. I worked with the guys at ReadyForZero to build readyforzero.com, created the Noir web framework, built the SQL abstraction layer Korma, and released a host of ClojureScript libraries to make client side development a breeze - many of which are now featured in the canonical books for Clojure. Even more recently, I built Bret Victor's live game editor after watching his inspiring "Inventing on Principle" talk. I have a history of building useful software and a hunger for making developers more efficient, as well as experience leading and shaping the the future of a billion dollar project.

frio 15y ago

I'll happily chip in some money, but having read recently about how Star Command's money burnt down (http://www.1up.com/news/star-command-kickstarter-funding-quickly-disappear http://www.1up.com/news/star-command-kickstarter-funding-qui...) I suspect you might have shot yourself in the foot a bit by offering the t-shirts at such a cheap rate. Either way, I've put some cash in the pot :).

collypops 15y ago

I'm not upset that higher pledge tiers don't include the rewards of previous tiers. This is not always cost effective, especially when you factor in T-shirt production and whatnot. I do believe however that the higher levels should give more value to the backer, where value can be reasonable calculated. Specifically, I take issue with the higher of these two tiers: > PLEDGE $1,000 OR MORE - 10 licenses of Light Table and acknowledgement as a backer of the project. > PLEDGE $5,000 OR MORE - 25 licenses of Light Table and acknowledgement as a sponsor of the project. How can a pledging 5x the amount of the previous tier give you only 2.5x the value?

deleted 15y ago
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daniel_solano 15y ago
You get to be a 'sponsor'. That's obviously twice as good as a 'backer'. Honestly, I have no idea. In the end, these levels are primarily oriented at companies or other groups (education?), not individuals. What's one person going to do with 25 licenses?
Scriptor 15y ago
Well, you get your logo on the home page for a year, which could be very good advertising if the project becomes big. However, I have no clue how much the advertising would actually be valued for a typical company.

mattdeboard 15y ago

The strength of his past contributions alone is enough to convince me to donate. You can't throw a football in Clojure land without hitting a high-quality contribution of his.

deleted 15y ago

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shortlived 15y ago

If closure is one of the first languages, how easy would it be to support java?

mey 15y ago
I am looking forward to Java support as well. I will be backing this project even if it isn't included, but the value in my workflow would be tackling Java.

aiscott 15y ago

The current pricing structure is discouraging backers, in my opinion. You tell us that when it's released it will most likely be pay-what-you-want, but if we pay early and support the project we are pushed into $50. I can guarantee you that if you do pay-what-you-want, your average isn't going to be $50. I don't know what percentage of backers are the kind that do it merely to "support" a project, but I would guess it's not more than 10-15% of all backers for a given project. The rest want some value for their money beyond feeling good about backing. You state you chose $50 for a license because that is what you think it is worth. I think you'll find out that what you think people will pay you for something and what they are willing to pay differs by a factor of 2-3. So most of the people that want what you are going to make, even a little, probably don't want to spend more than $20 or $25. The difference between that and $50 is made up from goodwill, but that's really asking a lot of people. I would recommend making some more tiers between $5 and $50, where everything above $20 gets a license. This way you capture the people that just want the product, and give others the ability to show their goodwill as well. This isn't the kind of project that really needs swag. Nobody really wants a t-shirt. If you do something like promise to list backers (and their associated tiers) in the "credits" of the app, that would probably be great for most people. edit: typos, and wording

LinXitoW 15y ago
I think its always hard for software kickstarters to offer anything interesting besides the actual product. As you've said, in this case, even merchandise doesn't really make sense. The only tier, apart from a 15$ software tier(as its been standard), that would make sense to me personally(and financially) would be an option to vote on what language he creates support for first(after he's done with the initial Clojure version).
latch 15y ago
Dead horse but, without being able to see upvotes, Chris has no way of knowing if 2 people agree with this or 200. This is a wasted opportunity to help. For what it's worth, I agree, especially on the t-shirt. I stopped reading after $20 because (a) I sure as heck don't want a tshirt and figured everything else would include it, but that doesn't matter because (b) I have no desire to "invest" more.

vibrunazo 15y ago

Should put something like "if we pass the X goal, then it will be truly free, no licensing holding progress back". Then I would be excited to donate :)

TomasSedovic 15y ago
I don't mind paying for the software. If it ends up being as cool as it looks, I'll happily part with the cash. But I would love the promise of open source and not open core. Especially since the current description is so vague. "some of the plugins may remained [sic] closed source" What kinds of plugins? Every supported language is a plugin -- will Python or Ruby end up closed? Or the inline HTML rendering? If Chris promised a true commitment to keeping this open, I'd promise to pay up. With Kickstarter, I could even prove it. How about a KS reward that would give me the access to all everything Light Table related that the team builds? Also note that even GPL allows you to sell the software and sell the code separately. Ditto for other licenses. I'd pay for the code. Not sure how viable that actually is, but it's something to consider. Lastly, how's the development going to look like? Are the open source parts going to be done in the open (as most successful open source projects do) or will it be Android-like code dump on the release date?

sev 15y ago

I think the $50 mark to get a license is a little steep. Besides that, the video quality on the Kickstart home page is quite bad; I tried to see what was going on so I put it in full-screen mode and couldn't read anything properly.

lwat 15y ago

The main thing holding me back is the supported languages. I don't use Clojure and I'm not a big enough Javascript fan. Suggestion: Add more languages if you reach enough backing $200k: JS and Clojure $250k: JS, Clojure and C $300k: JS, Clojure, C and ...

selfoner 15y ago
I don't use JS much or Clojure at all. If I were the developer, I would look at adding the top used languages post haste: C/C++, Java, Python, Perl, etc. It seems like it might be particularly well suited for HTML5/CSS3 development as well, since it runs in a browser, and that would be great to have.
shortlived 15y ago
C would be INCREDIBLE
- Arelius 15y ago
  C development in this manner isn't a particularly trivial matter. C header compilation and decleration alone complicates this.
  - wladimir 15y ago
    libclang could help a lot here, as it gives access to the internals of a C/C++ compiler all the way from tokenizing to code generation. It also has built-in support for all kinds of IDE features such as code completion and fixit hints.
  - gaius 15y ago
    See http://tenaciousc.com/ http://tenaciousc.com/
  - shortlived 15y ago
    and thus my INCREDIBLE description

swah 15y ago

For a change, I wish this wasn't web-based, but based on Chromium and really fast. (And with a great plugin system).

ibdknox 15y ago
It is all of those things :)
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]

ibdknox 15y ago

Just added this to the description: If we hit $300k, Python will be the third language to be supported out of the gate.

Impossible 15y ago
What would you have to raise to promise Lua support ;)? I imagine Ruby would come in at $400K-$500K.
- alberth 15y ago
  +1 for Lua I'd donate $500 right now if Lua support will be available in v1. Edit: $500 (originally $100)
  - Tuna-Fish 15y ago
    I rather doubt there will be that much point in that. Based on what he has spoken of the architecture, doing 3rd-party language support should be extraordinarily easy. Putting more languages into v1 will really only push it back -- the actual lua support should probably be done by someone with experience hacking lua.
- Arelius 15y ago
  Curious, what do you use lua for? Presumably embedded in some fashion? I'd imagine the use case will change drastically based on the target.
Arelius 15y ago
Get it out first, if you hit $300K, put Python next on the list, but don't delay release until it's in there. It's just good sense to get something out sooner regardless if you have the finances to support more.
Devilboy 15y ago
Sold!

ibdknox 15y ago

Clarification on the closed source plugins: That bit of text was misleading, the plugins that would be closed source are not the ones that would result immediately from this project, but instead domain specific plugins that wouldn't have broad appeal. All the language plugins will be open.

th 15y ago
I really think you should clarify the expected terms of the license. I would gladly throw $50 to you if you released this under a MIT (or similar) license. Even if I never switch from vim, I feel my $50 would be well-spent bringing a (hopefully) awesome free IDE into the world. If this isn't actually free software but only open source, I still might purchase a license for myself, but I think it's fair that this is mentioned upfront.

politician 15y ago

I've thrown some of mine into the pot. As a Clojure apprentice, I'm eager to see the beta. However, I honestly doubt that some of the desired languages are even possible - C, really? Even JS seems dubious.

tubbo 15y ago
the javascript console in most browsers and JSLint already do this to some degree, Light Table just has to automate it. same goes for Ruby (IRB and ruby -S)

duaneb 15y ago

$50 is way too much, especially since I don't use javascript or clojure and I don't see myself switching... ever. If there was C support or even python, then it would much much less of a risk for my money.

ibdknox 15y ago
Python will come in at $300k, but one thing to keep in mind is that it is a highly extensible and completely open platform. There's no reason we have to be the ones to add support for all languages.

lsiebert 15y ago

If it's written in Javascript based on code mirrorand the only thing closed source are a few plugins not related to the actual language plugins, then it should be fairly easy to roll a package with chromium or Firefox built around it. I expect a few show HN posts. I also hope for hosted solutions, and licensing for students. This seems like an excellent way to learn a language. I think we will see done aspects turned into plugins and add ons for existing IDEs but that is not the same as building this intentionally from the ground up. If you can have function reference lookup, for example, and if it's built in Javascript, you can probably build in other forms of reference already on the Web. Pervasive passive information that you would normally have to search for.

james33 15y ago

I was really anticipating this Kickstarter campaign to start, but the pledge levels are a real downer. I don't mind paying $50 to get the licensee, but I should get beta access for that. This project looks really cool, but essentially preordering something over a year in advance (and lets face it, these timelines never actually get met) for the same price or more than you would pay when it is actually released without even getting beta access is somewhat insulting. What incentive do I have to pledge right now?

snprbob86 15y ago

Chris: Just wanted to say "Good luck!" Also, I saw you mentioned a patched Clojure compiler for column information. Did you use my patch? :-) Let me know how I can help with Clojure and ClojureScript contributions. I find working on the compilers to be a lot of fun.

rexreed 15y ago

I'm confused about what Kickstarter will accept for software projects and which ones they won't. My latest project was rejected, but it was also a developer app. What is the guideline for what they will accept?

lsc 15y ago

Just a thought; when I read the title and started reading the description, I thought you were actually selling a giant drafting-table sized LCD. If you wanted to integrate the IDE well with one particular piece of really nice kit, and then tell people that if they donate more than $BIGNUM, they get a nice workstation, all setup and integrated. (just a silly idea. That's probably more of a distraction than you want. But it could be showy.)

shortlived 15y ago

Where can I read more about the implementation details. I'm particularly interested in how well it will work on an "enterprise" app, e.g. 500K loc with some ugly dependencies.

sellingly 15y ago

Very cool, but I had to ask the question: Is this similar to / also based around the Iguana translator? Thread here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3856159 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3856159

nato1138 15y ago

this belongs as a petridish.com -- save kickstarter for the arts!

beefman 15y ago

I just pledged $50. I did it for the license. As I did so, I realized: this must mean Light Table isn't going to be free software. Presumably I'm getting it at a discount for being an investor. Does it adequately compensate me for the risk of buying a nonexistent product? Shouldn't I get some percentage of its profits, if it's not going to be free software after an injection of more than $200K? Does the license give me lifetime upgrades, or only the first version? These were my thoughts as I clicked through the Amazon payment buttons.

james33 15y ago
The problem is that it appears that $50 is not a discount on the final price at all, so you really get no added value by pledging money to help him make this a reality more than a year before you'll ever see anything.
- beefman 15y ago
  He's now added a $15 license option, so I changed my pledge. He hasn't responded about the longevity of the license.
  - james33 15y ago
    Yes, I've now pledged at the $50 level now that he added beta access to that.

Drbble 15y ago

I don't get it. This proposal sounds like Eclipse that exists today plus a couple of small new plugin for the more aspirational bits.

iamtoby2003 15y ago

mmm....if i contribute 10 bucks, i would expect at least a copy of the software. Plus, the UI is not too exciting and their expecation for investment might be abit high IMO

nyrb 15y ago

Was going to pledge the project, but saw "it is browser-based, it will packaged in a webview of some kind so that it feels like a normal app". Nothing wrong with browser-based editor, but I am comfortable with native app. That's my personal preference.

esmevane 15y ago

Without disagreeing with the prevailing opinions on the reward rankings, may I observe that it's interesting how Kickstarter has transformed donations for innovation into a shopping cart experience? So many folks in this thread, myself included, have adopted a stance of "I don't know if pledging this much is worth it!" Well, we don't have to, right? We can just pledge $1 if we like it and want to help a bit. Except we're talking about this product as though it is on sale and priced too high. [edit]: Cleared up language.

JackC 15y ago
it's interesting how Kickstarter has transformed donations for innovation into a shopping cart experience I've been going back and forth about this, and I think the phrasing of the particular Kickstarter project controls whether it's more a donation or shopping cart experience. Think about the conversation like this: - "Hey, can you chip in some money so I can spend a bunch of time making a really cool piece of software?" - "Sure, I'd love to! I can spare $25. When do I get to play with your build?" - "Oh, $25 isn't enough for you to access the software. That's just a donation. But you can buy a copy when it comes out." - "..." If the pitch is "chip in what you can, and we'll make a cool thing for everyone," then you set the stage for donations for innovation. If the pitch is "pay enough, and we'll give you a license to our cool thing," then you're offering a shopping cart experience. Which is fine, I use shopping carts all the time, but it's a different and less exciting thing. This is maybe different with physical products -- if there's a cost per product, there obviously needs to be a minimum donation to get one. But with a virtual product, the reason you set a high donation threshold to get a copy is that you're selling a product rather than asking for a donation. Again, that's totally reasonable, but it's not as exciting to be part of. As I keep thinking about it, I think there might be an uncanny valley effect here. If a software company I really like, like the Omni Group or Macromates, said they were doing presales of a revolutionary new product and needed me to buy in so it could get made, I would be psyched to do it. But this is halfway in between -- it's neither "donate to my cool project" nor "pre-order my cool product," but "donate to my cool product." I think that's where our gears start grinding a little. I'm still up in the air about whether to donate to/purchase this one or not. Interesting stuff.

nl 15y ago

$10,000 for a logo (and link?) from the front page of a popular project like this could be pretty cheap SEO. I know Apache (the foundation, not the software) used to have a problem with sponsors who were basically buying links. Apparently sponsoring Apache was cheaper than trying to buy links on comparatively ranked sites. It looks like there could be at least one company on http://www.apache.org/foundation/thanks.html http://www.apache.org/foundation/thanks.html at the moment that still falls into that category.

jurre 15y ago

I feel the part about it being open source is either misleading or your description is just really vague, even after the update. First you mention the core is open source, then you mention we need a license for which we can pay as much as we'd like. Now that last part doesn't seem very open source to me. Fair enough if you want to make money with this, that's your right and I don't think anyone will try to stop you. But don't say it's open source when it's not. Could you explain, if Light Table is released, what will I have to do to obtain a copy? If payment is involved, please explain to me how it is open source. What license will be used (MIT, GPL etc, if you roll your own, please outline the major parts)?

th 15y ago
I was confused by this at first also. Open source means you can look at the source code. Sometimes it means more than that (often depending on who is using the term). GNU's criticism of open source: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.h...

Void_ 15y ago

This is no open source. When I saw the Light Table demo, I wanted to build it for CoffeeScript, and I could do it. This morning I found this, I got excited because I could use your interface and create a plugin for CoffeeScript. I was hoping I would be able to simply clone it and start working. Instead I'm asked to pay X dollars to only get access to early beta? > I'm a firm believer in open source Yeah? Then make it open source. Develop it publicly on GitHub. Let people contribute. Don't make them pay. > As such, I believe it only fair that the core of Light Table be open sourced once it is launched. I believe I just gave you hundred dollars. Can I have the beta access now?

frio 15y ago
Developing things in the open can be a drag for a product first getting off the ground. People pull in different directions, want different things, and fork the project (and the community) in doing so. I'm a strong believer in free (as in speech) software, but the practicalities of doing so too soon in a product's lifecycle can kill it. Personally, I'm more than happy for them to get the core done properly, and open-source later.

xsace 15y ago

May 2013? I can't wait for so long.

angeladur 15y ago

so the software is opensource, but they are providing official binaries for a Fee. Hmm..very similar to what XChat did a while ago

xlevus 15y ago

Why is the first tangible reward a t-shirt and not the product? If I was going to fund something, I would want to know my money is going to the product and not merchandise. I don't think a YC pitch would go well if they said "And with the first $10k we're going to send out t-shirts to the first 1000 subscribers on the mailing list."

DanBC 15y ago

T-shirt printing, packing, and delivery appears to be an unfilled niche.

eyko 15y ago

I was hoping for an open source project rather than a $200,000 product, but that's just me… Besides, Javascript being the main supported language is a put off to be honest. But there goes my $1.

wxl 15y ago

$200k seems like an awful lot to me. I don't see why you need a massive team to make an IDE. It's not like you're making a game, where you need artists, programmers, composers, etc. All this is is programming.

tsiki 15y ago

Will it have any support for popular JS modularisation libraries like require.js?

JoshMock 15y ago

Not trying to add one more "VIM IS BETTER" comment like happens on every thread about editors, but I have an actual, for-real question: who wants to help make a Vim workalike version of this? Because I would donate to that (in time, meager Vimscript skills, money) in a heartbeat.

oscully 15y ago
I'd be very interested in pursuing this. I have some of this functionality already via numerous vim plugins, but not all of it. If I get a free moment in the next couple weeks I'll start writing something up about what already exists and what is missing. Want to mention I think Light Table looks fantastic, but now that I have internalized vim's key bindings I am very hesitant to switch. That said, I still pledged on kickstarter.

ibdknox 15y ago

Just added this update: EDIT: Also, these changes will take effect for everyone who has already pledged at these levels. Though if you could, please switch - if the old ones have 0 pledges I can delete them. Unfortunately I can't change the pricing structure in place, but based on the feedback we've gotten so far I've added a set of new rewards - all of which are better than their previous ones. :) $15 - A license and acknowledgement on the contributor list $50 - A license and early beta access $100 - A license, early beta access, and participation in feedback rounds $200 - Two licenses, pre-beta access, and participation in feedback rounds All the higher rewards will also of course include participation in the feedback rounds. Ultimately, this should address people's concerns of buying something before it exists, but providing the opportunity to be a part of it at a lower price point.

ovidiu 15y ago
Much better now. I pledged 50$ for the beta access and license. Good luck!
james33 15y ago
Awesome, you sir have just gotten a new pledge! I am much more confident knowing that you'll listen to feedback.
- sterling312 15y ago
  Just a thought that popped into my head. Assuming that the product issued in the end is going to be the same for everybody. And assume that the highest contributor that gets to put in the feedback generally improves the software. This creates a free loading problem for those who contributed less (myself included) for the same product. Even if it's a positive externality for the general backers, I wonder if there is a way for Kickstarter to properly compensate for such externality.
speg 15y ago
The timelines are all messed up now. What's the difference between 'early' and 'pre' beta? Are these still later than the $500 'absolute earliest user testing' pledge? If licences are now down to $15 - shouldn't all the pledges that contained multiple licences be adjusted as well? e.g., the $500 pledge included $200 worth of licences before, but now they are only valued at $60. I understand KickStarter doesn't allow you to change existing rewards, but this is turning into a bit of a confusing mess...

ScotterC 15y ago

With the new early beta access for $50, I'm in.

methodin 15y ago

Anyone have insight into how the tool that shows variables as it passed through functions would work in an extensible "port over the language of your choice" way? Is this reliant on stack tracing/debug tools or more rudimentary methods?

hkuo 15y ago

Just backed and looking forward to trying this out! I just have one question/suggestion just in case it makes sense. My main hesitation with using a browser-based IDE is that with native apps, I can use standard quick-keys to navigate documents very quickly using just the keyboard, such as flipping between documents, jumping my cursor to the beginning or end of a line/document and shift-arrowing/tabbing to make a selection. These are very basic and simple things, but without them, I would have to painfully use my trackpad/mouse to make selections, navigate the cursor around, or switch between documents. Just wondering if you're considering this type of functionality that will let me perform quick and simple actions through keyboard commands.

ibdknox 15y ago
I'm a huge vim guy, and killed me to use the mouse as much as I did in the video. The real thing will be shortcuttable to your heart's content :) And all the standard things you would expect to work (like the ones you describe) will definitely be there before the end.

devin 15y ago

I pledged $500. The only reason I'm being public about it is because I see people in here complaining about the cost of a license and wanting their dollars to translate into something more than this project simply becoming a reality. I don't have a barrel full of money by any stretch of the imagination, but given all of the lispers and schemers on Hacker News, pg's essays, and so on, I find it surprising that there would be as much hesitation as there is about paying $50 for some of smalltalk's greatest hits coupled with an environment that lowers the barrier to entry for people to dig into the best modern lisp around. I'm donating because I want to live in a better place, not because I want a license. The cost of not funding a project that could mainstream so many lost and forgotten great ideas while simultaneously promoting some of the best new ones, seems sort of like a crime against the craft of programming in general. I mean no offense, just an observation.

Blunt 15y ago

I'd pledge the full $200K if they would take on C++ immediately. I am so sick and tired of IDEs that suck at delivering solid C++ coding environment. The best tool I've found for the job, to date, is Source Insight.

ameen 15y ago

Thanks for making the change. I just pledged $15 for a license. I'll make good on my promise and spread the word around my networks, and hope others who pledged the least for a license payback in similar ways too. All the best Chris.