3 ms·

This comes across like someone's PhD project. It's unclear from reading the website what this is useful for and what it actually is.

mindwok 2y ago
Ok I went and watched the YouTube video. As a few others have mentioned, it seems analogous to iPython notebooks. Basically a bunch of tiny tools that augment your experience working with code, like showing dependencies as a graph, or letting you view dictionaries graphically.
- tudorgirba 2y ago
  Thank you for taking the time. There is certainly similarity with notebooks. However, the notebook is only a part. For example, the notebooks are part of a knowledge base. They are multi-language. But the more interesting bit comes from how you can extend the environment to make it fit the context of your problem. For example, a prominent way to extend is by creating contextual inspector views for different objects. When taken as a whole, we end up with a new kind of a development experience that is centered around contextualizing the environment as part of development. It turns out that this is applicable to a wide range of problems. For example, the talk video from the page shows examples from several domains: - it starts by browsing the file system of a React project and then querying the external dependencies from a package.json - then it goes into static analysis of React components and their dependencies - then it shows how to explore the data of a REST API and document its usage - then it goes to work with GraphQL and show how to combine it with imperative code to explore data; and even here, we go a step deeper and answer the question of how the tool worked (i.e., what query was sent to the server when we do not specify pagination completely) - then it shows how we can work with Python by extending the inspector with Python code - then it shows how we can also change the editing experience as well and make it contextual - then it shows how we can document a domain model through executable examples that when combined with contextual views become documentation - then it shows how to work with the knowledge base and even post live to a social media from it through a dedicated snippet - then it shows how we can explain a Docker setup and how the commands were derived from templates - then it shows again social media interactions but this time by browsing posts in inspectors and querying the feed live - and finally it shows how we can have a dedicated editor for configurations defined in JSON that know how to highlight, complete and navigate based on the schema information Now, these are not features; they are just some ways you can use the environment for without the need for switching. The book from the environment shows even more such examples for inspiration. Each of these might look similar to some tool somewhere, but the possibility to have all of them in the same environment made out of the same pieces combined in many ways is the differentiator. Does this help in any way?
  - mindwok 2y ago
    Thanks for taking the effort to lay it out for me! I did watch the video, and I think I can see what you are going for. I appreciate the goal - having tooling that dynamically adapts to the problem I am trying to solve sounds like a dream. My main reservation, at least initially, was that the website comes across too focused on the paradigm for its own sake. Hence my comment - it feels like a PhD project trying to project complexity and impressiveness. Personally I would have appreciated more focus on what it is, and why its useful, not an abstract framing of "moldable development". I hope that's not too harsh - just wanted to give my 2c honestly.
    - tudorgirba 2y ago
      Thank you for the feedback! It is certainly not too harsh :) The problem is that for any given problem, there might be some solution out there that does something like it. Except that there is no solution anywhere in which you can do all of these. So, we are showing Moldable Development because that is the goal and that is the proposition of the technology. I believe that masking it as something else would not be particularly useful. We understand that at this point in time, most people do not look for Moldable Development. Most people will consider it once others have taken it and create large value with it. So, right now, we are interested in finding those people because they will convince everyone else :). If you want to learn more about Moldable Development, take a look at the book I am writing in the open with Simon Wardley: https://medium.com/feenk/rewilding-software-engineering-900ca95ebc8c https://medium.com/feenk/rewilding-software-engineering-900c...
larodi 2y ago
..and why Smalltalk
- tudorgirba 2y ago
  Why not? :) The goal was to explore the idea of contextualizing our tools for each development. It is built in Smalltalk (and Rust underneath) because Smalltalk already has the possibility of a live environment that can be changed from within. This allowed us to explore the space at much lower cost. Glamorous Toolkit is the result of that.
  - larodi 2y ago
    Okay your "why not" comment is a little bit on the passive aggressive side, while my question was an actual question about the choice of tech. Happily then you found the strength to actually answer the question in a reasonable way, thanks for that. Also thanks for down-voting my sincere curiosity, helps a lot, and made me feel appreciated.
    - sgc 2y ago
      Is there some way to know the user who down voted here? I wouldn't presume that was the case. Many users here might have downvoted your parent comment because it was terse and appeared combative rather than contributing to the conversation. I have found on HN it is best to enrich one's questions to avoid this look. I also did not detect anything passive aggressive in the 'why not', it's a fair enough initial response (even kept light with a smiley face!) - the good will was further demonstrated by continuing with an actual explanation instead of a snarky comment. It's the nature of online communication that we need to take a step back and take in a number of added variables before we jump to conclusions.
      - tudorgirba 2y ago
        Oh, I did not know there was a way to downvote here, actually. I thought you could only upvote. Thank you for the kind clarification. Indeed, it describes my intent quite well. Thank you for taking the time to describe how it is perceived from your point of view. I hope this is useful for the initial recipient as well.

mindwok 2y ago

Ok I went and watched the YouTube video. As a few others have mentioned, it seems analogous to iPython notebooks. Basically a bunch of tiny tools that augment your experience working with code, like showing dependencies as a graph, or letting you view dictionaries graphically.

tudorgirba 2y ago
Thank you for taking the time. There is certainly similarity with notebooks. However, the notebook is only a part. For example, the notebooks are part of a knowledge base. They are multi-language. But the more interesting bit comes from how you can extend the environment to make it fit the context of your problem. For example, a prominent way to extend is by creating contextual inspector views for different objects. When taken as a whole, we end up with a new kind of a development experience that is centered around contextualizing the environment as part of development. It turns out that this is applicable to a wide range of problems. For example, the talk video from the page shows examples from several domains: - it starts by browsing the file system of a React project and then querying the external dependencies from a package.json - then it goes into static analysis of React components and their dependencies - then it shows how to explore the data of a REST API and document its usage - then it goes to work with GraphQL and show how to combine it with imperative code to explore data; and even here, we go a step deeper and answer the question of how the tool worked (i.e., what query was sent to the server when we do not specify pagination completely) - then it shows how we can work with Python by extending the inspector with Python code - then it shows how we can also change the editing experience as well and make it contextual - then it shows how we can document a domain model through executable examples that when combined with contextual views become documentation - then it shows how to work with the knowledge base and even post live to a social media from it through a dedicated snippet - then it shows how we can explain a Docker setup and how the commands were derived from templates - then it shows again social media interactions but this time by browsing posts in inspectors and querying the feed live - and finally it shows how we can have a dedicated editor for configurations defined in JSON that know how to highlight, complete and navigate based on the schema information Now, these are not features; they are just some ways you can use the environment for without the need for switching. The book from the environment shows even more such examples for inspiration. Each of these might look similar to some tool somewhere, but the possibility to have all of them in the same environment made out of the same pieces combined in many ways is the differentiator. Does this help in any way?
- mindwok 2y ago
  Thanks for taking the effort to lay it out for me! I did watch the video, and I think I can see what you are going for. I appreciate the goal - having tooling that dynamically adapts to the problem I am trying to solve sounds like a dream. My main reservation, at least initially, was that the website comes across too focused on the paradigm for its own sake. Hence my comment - it feels like a PhD project trying to project complexity and impressiveness. Personally I would have appreciated more focus on what it is, and why its useful, not an abstract framing of "moldable development". I hope that's not too harsh - just wanted to give my 2c honestly.
  - tudorgirba 2y ago
    Thank you for the feedback! It is certainly not too harsh :) The problem is that for any given problem, there might be some solution out there that does something like it. Except that there is no solution anywhere in which you can do all of these. So, we are showing Moldable Development because that is the goal and that is the proposition of the technology. I believe that masking it as something else would not be particularly useful. We understand that at this point in time, most people do not look for Moldable Development. Most people will consider it once others have taken it and create large value with it. So, right now, we are interested in finding those people because they will convince everyone else :). If you want to learn more about Moldable Development, take a look at the book I am writing in the open with Simon Wardley: https://medium.com/feenk/rewilding-software-engineering-900ca95ebc8c https://medium.com/feenk/rewilding-software-engineering-900c...

larodi 2y ago

..and why Smalltalk

tudorgirba 2y ago
Why not? :) The goal was to explore the idea of contextualizing our tools for each development. It is built in Smalltalk (and Rust underneath) because Smalltalk already has the possibility of a live environment that can be changed from within. This allowed us to explore the space at much lower cost. Glamorous Toolkit is the result of that.
- larodi 2y ago
  Okay your "why not" comment is a little bit on the passive aggressive side, while my question was an actual question about the choice of tech. Happily then you found the strength to actually answer the question in a reasonable way, thanks for that. Also thanks for down-voting my sincere curiosity, helps a lot, and made me feel appreciated.
  - sgc 2y ago
    Is there some way to know the user who down voted here? I wouldn't presume that was the case. Many users here might have downvoted your parent comment because it was terse and appeared combative rather than contributing to the conversation. I have found on HN it is best to enrich one's questions to avoid this look. I also did not detect anything passive aggressive in the 'why not', it's a fair enough initial response (even kept light with a smiley face!) - the good will was further demonstrated by continuing with an actual explanation instead of a snarky comment. It's the nature of online communication that we need to take a step back and take in a number of added variables before we jump to conclusions.
    - tudorgirba 2y ago
      Oh, I did not know there was a way to downvote here, actually. I thought you could only upvote. Thank you for the kind clarification. Indeed, it describes my intent quite well. Thank you for taking the time to describe how it is perceived from your point of view. I hope this is useful for the initial recipient as well.