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They say: "Ultimately the goal of the platform is to be a highly extensible work surface" Still they needed 100k for adding Python support? I guess ruby/scal

They say: "Ultimately the goal of the platform is to be a highly extensible work surface" Still they needed 100k for adding Python support? I guess ruby/scala support is not happening anytime soon.

scottjad 14y ago
I think you're thinking about this wrong. Python support appears to be an incentive/carrot to help raise more money in general, not just for that feature. So Chris probably thought "it would be nice if we could raise even more money" for all sorts of features and picked one of them (built-in Python support) to use as an incentive.
- ezer 14y ago
  Python was a great choice as an incentive for raising more money, considering the size of the community.
sthlm 14y ago
I thought the whole budget was rather low compared to the total value that is to be created. Sure, 100k for 1 language sounds odd, given that 200k was enough not only for 2 languages, but also the entire framework. Still, the overall price point is more than fair. You have to take into consideration that Light Table aims to be specific; adding further languages will likely result in more efforts than merely adjusting an IDE a little bit.
- mwhooker 14y ago
  it's not as if we were purchasing one language. It's a stretch goal, with python as the reward. The goal and the difficulty of implementation are not related.
- fernandezpablo 14y ago
  I'm not saying 300k is a lot of money for LightTable. Sure, it sounds fair. I'm just saying they claim to be "highly extensible" and yet, support for a new language requires a development effort of 100k. It's sad since I mostly code in ruby or scala, these languages won't be supported and I don't think anyone is going to make a 100k development effort to support them.
  - mst 14y ago
    The fill-out-the-code-flow stuff is going to be -much- harder to do for python than for clojure, I suspect. Just because it's highly extensible doesn't mean that beating the other language's VM into doing what's needed isn't going to require a bunch of effort.
- duaneb 14y ago
  Of course, the more popular language, the higher the value. $200k for a clojure IDE is certainly overvalued for the number of people using it, but $300k is way undervalued for python. Not sure about javascript; obviously it's popular, but it's unclear whether this ide supports anything but niche (non-browser) use.
  - michaelsbradley 14y ago
    Depending on how its Clojure support is implemented, LightTable may be usable for ClojureScript projects, and thus allow developers to target browsers and NodeJS (and other JS runtimes). Do a search for "Pluggable Backend Infrastructure for ClojureScript, and Development of a Lua backend" and you should turn up a Google Summer of Code 2012 project which seeks to broaden the scope of the ClojureScript compiler. If that project is successful, and if LightTable supports ClojureScript, the IDE's reach may be greatly expanded in the relatively near term.
    - duaneb 14y ago
      Sure, but you still need to use Clojure, which is very unlikely to be of use to the average programmer.
      - tel 14y ago
        I somewhat doubt he's targeting the average programmer.
melling 14y ago
What does it cost to add another developer to the budget? At least $100k?
- pacaro 14y ago
  Some (many?) tech companies allow $200 - $250 per engineer per year - obviously this includes all of the other costs of employment in addition to direct compensation, at which point $300 doesn't look like so very much.

They say: "Ultimately the goal of the platform is to be a highly extensible work surface" Still they needed 100k for adding Python support? I guess ruby/scala support is not happening anytime soon.

scottjad 14y ago

I think you're thinking about this wrong. Python support appears to be an incentive/carrot to help raise more money in general, not just for that feature. So Chris probably thought "it would be nice if we could raise even more money" for all sorts of features and picked one of them (built-in Python support) to use as an incentive.

ezer 14y ago
Python was a great choice as an incentive for raising more money, considering the size of the community.

sthlm 14y ago

I thought the whole budget was rather low compared to the total value that is to be created. Sure, 100k for 1 language sounds odd, given that 200k was enough not only for 2 languages, but also the entire framework. Still, the overall price point is more than fair. You have to take into consideration that Light Table aims to be specific; adding further languages will likely result in more efforts than merely adjusting an IDE a little bit.

mwhooker 14y ago
it's not as if we were purchasing one language. It's a stretch goal, with python as the reward. The goal and the difficulty of implementation are not related.
fernandezpablo 14y ago
I'm not saying 300k is a lot of money for LightTable. Sure, it sounds fair. I'm just saying they claim to be "highly extensible" and yet, support for a new language requires a development effort of 100k. It's sad since I mostly code in ruby or scala, these languages won't be supported and I don't think anyone is going to make a 100k development effort to support them.
- mst 14y ago
  The fill-out-the-code-flow stuff is going to be -much- harder to do for python than for clojure, I suspect. Just because it's highly extensible doesn't mean that beating the other language's VM into doing what's needed isn't going to require a bunch of effort.
duaneb 14y ago
Of course, the more popular language, the higher the value. $200k for a clojure IDE is certainly overvalued for the number of people using it, but $300k is way undervalued for python. Not sure about javascript; obviously it's popular, but it's unclear whether this ide supports anything but niche (non-browser) use.
- michaelsbradley 14y ago
  Depending on how its Clojure support is implemented, LightTable may be usable for ClojureScript projects, and thus allow developers to target browsers and NodeJS (and other JS runtimes). Do a search for "Pluggable Backend Infrastructure for ClojureScript, and Development of a Lua backend" and you should turn up a Google Summer of Code 2012 project which seeks to broaden the scope of the ClojureScript compiler. If that project is successful, and if LightTable supports ClojureScript, the IDE's reach may be greatly expanded in the relatively near term.
  - duaneb 14y ago
    Sure, but you still need to use Clojure, which is very unlikely to be of use to the average programmer.
    - tel 14y ago
      I somewhat doubt he's targeting the average programmer.

melling 14y ago

What does it cost to add another developer to the budget? At least $100k?

pacaro 14y ago
Some (many?) tech companies allow $200 - $250 per engineer per year - obviously this includes all of the other costs of employment in addition to direct compensation, at which point $300 doesn't look like so very much.