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Light Table is in YCS12
- jcarden 14y agoAwesome. Way to go Chris!
- nextparadigms 14y agoI haven't followed the discussions much before, but will this support Android development sometime in the future?
- vibrunazo 14y agoWhy exactly would you want support for Android development? As far as I understand, LightTable's target are languages which doesn't already have the tools they're offering (dynamic scripting languages like JS, python etc). The existing Android dev tools already have all the features that LightTable is bringing to them. We already have those in Eclipse, we don't need LightTable. Only the dynamic languages with poor tooling does. (If you're an Android developer who misses some of the features of LightTable, you should look for some tutorials at www.eclipse.org, you'll learn eclipse can already do those and much more)
- swah 14y agoIf Eclipse encompassed what LightTable wants to achieve, one would only have to write a plugin... I think its trying to be something completely different...
- Jun8 14y agoNow, if only YC can invest in TextMate so that we can have 2.0!
- getsat 14y agoTextMate 2 came out a while ago. It changed its name to "Sublime Text 2" and it is awesome.
- Jun8 14y agoYou must be talking about the alpha release that was released end of last year? My joke about TM's new release turned out to be not so good.
- jaredsohn 14y agoI'm pretty sure that the GP just made a joke that at least didn't work for you. The GP is likely referring to this sentiment: "I started to realize that Sublime Text seemed to be everything many of us had hoped for in Textmate 2, but in software that was available today in a polished, fully functional version, not a just a rather buggy alpha preview." -- http://casperfabricius.com/site/2012/01/24/my-first-week-with-sublime-text-2/ http://casperfabricius.com/site/2012/01/24/my-first-week-wit...
- 1234the1234 14y agoIf only all these attempts at vim clones were instead spent on vim.
- krakensden 14y agoSublime Text is most definitely not a vim clone. It may have a vi-ish mode, but it's fairly weak. Sublime Text is in the TextMate/Notepad++ space.
- 1234the1234 14y agoWait did you just say that TextMate wasn't based on vim?
- timmc 14y agoI appreciate your transparency in this. I'm keeping my pledge in, though. :-)
- ibdknox 14y agoWe normally would wait to announce this until it was time to drum up the press machine, but it was more important to us that you guys know what's going on. If anyone has specific questions/concerns, I'll be lurking.
- reiddraper 14y agoAre the release dates for Kickstarter backers changing at all?
- ibdknox 14y agoIf they do, they'll be getting better, not worse.
- reiddraper 14y agoGreat. Thanks for the transparency.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- kamaal 14y agoWell do not even think of the term 'delay' or 'slip in schedule'. You have beaten up enough hype to keep people on toes expecting this thing to come out. In fact it will be very interesting if we see commit logs on something like Github. A lot of people follow a certain project(s) which they like. That may also help you test and flush out bugs as needed while soliciting feedback. All the best and expecting to see a solid product out!
- scarredwaits 14y agoI initially donated to make sure light table becomes a reality, but I will not withdraw my donation because I think this is a very worthwhile project and I still feel proud to support it. In other words: SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!!!
- 14y ago
- DannoHung 14y agoDoes this change the story on it being open source?
- ibdknox 14y agoNope! The plan is still for the platform to be open source, likely under a GPLish license.
- gaius 14y agoWhat will a "license" for LT then include?
- asmala 14y agoIndeed, I'm very curious about this one as well. Going for YC is clearly a great starting point for building a scalable business, so I wonder what the business logic will look like. As in genuinely, positively interested to know. :-)
- JackC 14y agoThe Kickstarter says that it might get you access to a packaged build, and that the price might be pay-what-you-want -- sounds a lot like the NeoOffice business model ( https://www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/mirrors.php?file=NeoOffice-3.2.1-Intel.dmg#download https://www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/mirrors.php?file=NeoOff... ). But making money from open source projects is hard enough, and varied enough, that it makes sense to spend a lot of time thinking about and experimenting with this one before committing to anything. It looks like that's what they're doing. So I don't think there will be a firm answer to this until they're much closer to launch -- or that it would be a good idea to offer one.
- kamaal 14y agoIf LightTable wants to be the 'Eclipse' of clojure and Python then it needs to be open source. Mass adoption, patches, test cases, design, feedback and money comes only when it reaches crazy adoption and a lot of people hack on it. That is why it is important for LightTable to release a minimal usable version ASAP and then improve it in further releases. All this needs a open source set up. A Cathedral set up earlier but a bazaar set up later.
- gaius 14y agoDoes this mean Python support in version 1 is more or less likely?
- leejoramo 14y agoMy question too. I backed Light Table with the hope they would hit the Python milestone.
- levesque 14y agoI won't back them based on a maybe. We'll talk again when python support becomes more than a teaser :)
- esmevane 14y agoWouldn't you think of this as slightly contrary to the purpose of backing a Kickstarter project? What I mean is, say the project had been set at 300k and python was one of the base supported languages. That would actually be no different than it is now, except that now the software itself is already guaranteed(1). Also, the python inclusion is certainly on the roadmap if it's mentioned before the project has been funded, right? So if you back it, then you're still probably backing a(n eventually) python-speaking platform. 1 - [Edit]: Well, "guaranteed", no. Funded, yes.
- levesque 14y agoWhen backing a kickstarter, I pay for what is advertised and described. If they make the hard deadline, they will do it. If not, I'll get my money back. There is no such guarantee for Python support. I fund them, maybe I'll get Python support.
- ibdknox 14y agoWe're sticking with our goal on Kickstarter - if we hit 300k we'll definitely do it. There's a decent chance we will either way though.
- JiPi 14y agoThis is some great news! I hope that will make Ruby and CoffeeScript support come sooner! :)
- Cushman 14y agoWhile being a part of YC doesn't affect our plans or change our use of Kickstarter as a means of accelerating the release of Light Table, many pledged with the explicit purpose of making sure that it had a chance. With YC that chance is now safe and we wanted to let our supporters know there will be no hard feelings if this changes your desire to pledge. Light Table uses Kickstarter to demonstrate market demand, YC responds to demand with funding, Light Table effectively offers to buy back Kickstarter pledges with YC money just to be nice. Wacky. There are a lot of ways to read the situation, but my favorite is that Light Table makes sense purely as a strategic acquisition for YC; there are enough YC companies using the languages Light Table targets that, should it yield magical productivity gains, the knock-on effects from being able to get their developers early access and input would be enormous. If they wind up changing the future of software development, all the better.
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y agoPlease add double-lines to your comment so it's readable, thanks! :)
- Cushman 14y agoHah, sorry. Forgot to read my own writing!
- batista 14y ago>There are a lot of ways to read the situation, but my favorite is that Light Table makes sense purely as a strategic acquisition for YC; there are enough YC companies using the languages Light Table targets that, should it yield magical productivity gains, the knock-on effects from being able to get their developers early access and input would be enormous. If they wind up changing the future of software development, all the better.* This sounds like a really lame conspiracy theory. YC got LT to "yield magical productivity gains" to it's companies? Please. Even if the programmers dropped their editors (Emacs, etc) to adopt LT, the productivity gains would be marginal. And code productivity at that level is not the bottleneck for a startup success either. A decent product people want to use, connections, and chance are far more important. For all the "we used Lisp so we did it faster/better" bragging, Yahoo could almost just as easily buy any other ViaWeb competitor for example, even one using the lamest of methodologies. Downvotes? People believe that using a better editor/IDE will yield "magical productivity gains" for a company? Or that ViaWeb succeeded because it was in Lisp? Well, how about the other 99% of companies, that succeeded based on lame technologies, from Facebook's PHP, to whatever. One company doing something successfully among thousands is as far from a proof as you can get. Post-fact rationalization sounds more like it ("Oh, we got bought. It was because we were ultra-productive programmers yielding Lisp").
- TwiztidK 14y agoCool. Now this definitely happens, likely sooner with more out of the box support, and I still get a T-shirt (assuming everyone on Kickstarter doesn't drop their pledges now). So, it's basically a win-win-win situation.
- flurpitude 14y agoI just made a pledge anyway. Whatever we can do to help make this a reality seems like a worthwhile use of money to me. It looks like a great piece of software.
- pwny 14y agoThe YC backing actually made me pledge. I held back initially figuring that I would easily be able to buy a license further down the road without taking the risk of seeing you guys give up (no offense intended!) However, getting into YC makes me appreciate how very serious you are and so I treated myself to an early beta. Good luck, I'm REALLY looking forward to trying Light Table out :)
- HCIdivision17 14y agoDitto. If the timeline for releases accelerates, I want to have early access to this awesome tool!
- peteysd 14y agoThis is very exciting news! I see this as being a very good thing for both Light Table and Clojure in general.
- thatmiddleway 14y agoI upped my pledge after reading this. Even more excited to be able to see the early betas and play with the future.
- pnathan 14y agoCongratulations! Do you anticipate using the SLIME/SWANK style backends? Reason why I ask is because I do a lot of Common Lisp coding and this would be an interesting project to give a spin.
- c4urself 14y agoThis is Light Table: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ibdknox/light-table http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ibdknox/light-table
- puredanger 14y agoChris Granger (@ibdknox) will be doing a talk in September at the Strange Loop conference - https://thestrangeloop.com/sessions/behind-the-mirror https://thestrangeloop.com/sessions/behind-the-mirror.
- Jun8 14y agoI have a comment that I thought about since I read this in the morning but could be perhaps interpreted as negative, but I'm really curious as to what people are thinking about this: I think this news is great, the quicker innovative editing tools like LT appear the better. But I have an uneasy feeling about an incubator (even though YC is the best one, IMO) or a VC scooping up projects from Kickstarter. I always thought KS was a way for the intelligent nobodies to bypass the whole incubator-VC-whatever system and to appeal directly to the masses. How to put it, there's a sense of Olympic amateurishness (in the original sense of the word) in KS projects. When they are picked up like this it sorts of negates that sense. What do you think?
- brandall10 14y agoHmm... that's an interesting perspective, I'm of the opposite opinion. I do get the sentiment though. There's a big difference between imagining something might be a great idea because of intuition, A/B testing/market research, even launching and getting engagement but no monetization... vs. getting people to actually put their hard-earned dollars into it in advance of any available product. To me, there's no stronger 'go' signal one can have. To an investor it takes away all the mystery... do you even need a pitch? The only thing left is whether or not the team can execute on the vision. And hence the value of a great incubator to reduce friction on that end.
- gavanwoolery 14y agoI think it depends on the project. With any sufficient amount of talent behind something this ambitious, the $200k they raised on Kickstarter will go quite fast...on one hand, they should take the VC money while they are "hot" - but on the other, if they could ride out their funds they would probably have more leverage with a stable-ish product in place.
- smalter 14y agoThis is happening. I personally know of 3 Kickstarter -> VC-backed startups, and I'm sure it's more widespread than that. Kickstarter serves projects that are on a continuum from "pure" art (uncommercializable) to pre-sales (already commercial), so a transition to a full-fledged commercial endeavor makes a lot of sense for many many projects. There will still be a lot of amazing Olympic amateur projects, I hope/expect!
- mangler 14y agoOK now, this is a whole new business model and I like it. Early supporters pay for the demo and get a t-shirt. Later supporters pay for the continuing refinement of the demo and get a t-shirt. Later supporters pay for the demo and get a t-shirt a mention somewhere. When the demo is awesome (but not open to the public) and also the market can be assessed based on early support, someone (who saw the latest demo and the early support) pays for the rest, but what they get is a cut from any potential future cash flows. Now, this, is, neat!!! Incidentally, this is the problem with Kickstarter - if you want money, don't give me a t-shirt, give me a part of your future profit. Then people who back bad ideas suffer and people who back good ideas profit. As opposed to the current model, where everyone gets a cheap shitty t-shirt and the world gets another worthless r&b record that nobody wants.
- TeeWEE 14y agoI dont see how light table is different than an good ide for java. - docs everywhere When i hover over a symbol, method or class i get the documentation right in my IDE - instant feedback Ok this is new but can only be done for simple calculations - table as a unit of work Saying that "we can de better than files" is true. In fact in my IDE i just dragndrop methods around, navigate the class hierarchy, etc. Its just coincidence that every class is represented as a file. But i do not care. The point is that i write code against the AST and not against "plain text". The IDE parses the code on the spot. This is nothing new. So all in all i dont see a lot of new concepts.
- FuzzyDunlop 14y agoLight Table isn't a Java IDE, so this isn't a fair comparison. For a dynamic language, where a REPL will no doubt be part of your workflow, an IDE that aims to merge the process of editing and interacting is probably quite valuable. Like emacs with slime but less daunting to the unfamiliar.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- kombine 14y agoI am personally much more impressed with Code bubbles which as been around for 2 years and which I shamefully missed at a time of its appearance. Of course it's less talked about, as there is certainly less hype about Java than Clojure and Javascript, but a statically typed language benefits a lot more from this concept, rather than dynamically typed.
- vinodkd 14y agoseconded. not to take anything away from LT, but i'd really like to see it deal with a large codebase.