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I think Mr. Granger should refrain from using inaccurate remarks about the history of programming. Light Table is neat but it is not the first attempt at an int

I think Mr. Granger should refrain from using inaccurate remarks about the history of programming. Light Table is neat but it is not the first attempt at an interactive development environment. His ideas were quite common 30+ years ago (20 years ago would have been right about the time when this style of programming started falling out of vogue). Alan Kay does a far better job than I can in explaining some of this history: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvmTSpJU-Xc&feature=youtube_gdata_player http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvmTSpJU-Xc&feature=youtu... Update I wasn't being terribly fair. Granger might simply not have been aware. In that case I hope he sees my comment and watches the above video. :)

seanmcdirmid 14y ago
When I gave my talk on live programming in OOPSLA/Onward! 2007, one of the gang of four (of Design Patterns fame) criticized me on not mentioning smalltalk enough. You know, I think we are all aware of Smalltalk and its ability to reload code on the fly, or the "live" eToys demo Alan Kay was giving in the late 90s/early 00s (I saw it the first time at his ECOOP 2000 banquet speech). But there really is something special in Light Table (and other projects, including my own) that go beyond that; they are working on a practical tool for programmers, they are really focusing on an interactive UX, which to be clear, Smalltalk environments never really had. Yes, get your history and citation right to avoid being flamed. But no, it didn't end with Smalltalk (or Lisp, or whatever) and we are not just going back to that.
- tisme 14y ago
  > interactive UX, which to be clear, Smalltalk environments never really had Smalltalk had an interactive UX in 1986 or so when I used it first for some CAD stuff. Or is there a special definition of 'interactive UX' which would rule out what smalltalk offered back then?
  - seanmcdirmid 14y ago
    You know, people sometimes say Visual C++ is interactive UX because of the freaking form builder. I guess my argument is more about a certain level of interactivity that is missing; its not black and white to be sure.
    - klibertp 14y ago
      Don't know about "back then", but if Pharo and Morphic are not "interactive UX" then I have no idea what could be called that...
- jgrahamc 14y ago
  "Yes, get your history and citation right to avoid being flamed." That's the wrong motivation for understanding the history of computing as it relates to what you are working on. There are things to learn from history. It's not the ability to correctly cite Smalltalk etc. to quiet some older programmers , it's the ability to compare, contrast and learn from what came before. The really debilitating thing about not understanding the history is that you are doomed to repeat the same mistakes; it's better if you can make new mistakes. For example, you say "But there really is something special in Light Table". Great. What is it?
  - seanmcdirmid 14y ago
    I've mentioned in a peer post that his design is very well done; they are focusing on awareness and code topology issues that I think is long overdue. Now, do I know exactly what the differences are between smalltalk yet? No, not at all. But I've never seen smalltalk demos like this (the closest would be etoys, which was a not-very-comparable end-user programming experience). Again, its a blog post and a talk, I don't think we should expect rigor on previous/related work coverage at this point, that will come with time.
- agentultra 14y ago
  Appeals to emotion don't really tell me what makes Light Table innovative. You say there is, "something special," about it. What is it? It takes either hubris or ignorance to believe your ideas are completely original. Whether Chris is aware of it or not, Light Table is not a new idea. I'm not suggesting it isn't a good one because I believe it is. However the way he worded his post suggests to me that he is probably not aware of the giants upon whose shoulders he now stands. Nobody just picked up a guitar and invented rock-and-roll. The theory or relativity didn't just come to Einstein one day. No good idea is born in a vacuum. I only rain on the parade a little in the hopes that his writing will improve and to raise awareness in people who aren't aware that these are good ideas and that there have been many attempts to develop them.
  - seanmcdirmid 14y ago
    Light Table's layout and association between code and UI is much more direct than Smalltalk's; I would say its even better when you consider morphic. The way they've reified execution is also nicely done (seeing what objects exist as they are created). There is a lot of innovations here, and yes, they are probably building on 20 years of related work THAT GO WAY BEYOND SMALLTALK. If he goes into a smalltalk credit, why not Lisp machines? Why not VPLs? Why not every little research project that has attempted this in the past (including my own work)? And he is still correct: the vast majority of programmers haven't been influenced by this at all, we failed, and he is trying again hopefully with something that will work! If he was writing a technical paper, then he could discuss everything in a related work section; but it was a strangeloop talk + blog post, what kind of rigor are you expecting?
    - agentultra 14y ago
      Why not simply be more aware of those things? His blog post made sweeping generalizations about what programming was like twenty years ago that are clearly inaccurate at their worst or at least misleading at best. He doesn't need to cite anything. He could just make fewer generalizations of the sort in his post. Many programmers from twenty years ago were working on the very kinds of projects he is today. His might be better for many reasons than those early attempts but he does himself and his audience a disservice by not being aware of them.
endlessvoid94 14y ago
I was at that talk at UIUC!

seanmcdirmid 14y ago

When I gave my talk on live programming in OOPSLA/Onward! 2007, one of the gang of four (of Design Patterns fame) criticized me on not mentioning smalltalk enough. You know, I think we are all aware of Smalltalk and its ability to reload code on the fly, or the "live" eToys demo Alan Kay was giving in the late 90s/early 00s (I saw it the first time at his ECOOP 2000 banquet speech). But there really is something special in Light Table (and other projects, including my own) that go beyond that; they are working on a practical tool for programmers, they are really focusing on an interactive UX, which to be clear, Smalltalk environments never really had. Yes, get your history and citation right to avoid being flamed. But no, it didn't end with Smalltalk (or Lisp, or whatever) and we are not just going back to that.

tisme 14y ago
> interactive UX, which to be clear, Smalltalk environments never really had Smalltalk had an interactive UX in 1986 or so when I used it first for some CAD stuff. Or is there a special definition of 'interactive UX' which would rule out what smalltalk offered back then?
- seanmcdirmid 14y ago
  You know, people sometimes say Visual C++ is interactive UX because of the freaking form builder. I guess my argument is more about a certain level of interactivity that is missing; its not black and white to be sure.
  - klibertp 14y ago
    Don't know about "back then", but if Pharo and Morphic are not "interactive UX" then I have no idea what could be called that...
jgrahamc 14y ago
"Yes, get your history and citation right to avoid being flamed." That's the wrong motivation for understanding the history of computing as it relates to what you are working on. There are things to learn from history. It's not the ability to correctly cite Smalltalk etc. to quiet some older programmers , it's the ability to compare, contrast and learn from what came before. The really debilitating thing about not understanding the history is that you are doomed to repeat the same mistakes; it's better if you can make new mistakes. For example, you say "But there really is something special in Light Table". Great. What is it?
- seanmcdirmid 14y ago
  I've mentioned in a peer post that his design is very well done; they are focusing on awareness and code topology issues that I think is long overdue. Now, do I know exactly what the differences are between smalltalk yet? No, not at all. But I've never seen smalltalk demos like this (the closest would be etoys, which was a not-very-comparable end-user programming experience). Again, its a blog post and a talk, I don't think we should expect rigor on previous/related work coverage at this point, that will come with time.
agentultra 14y ago
Appeals to emotion don't really tell me what makes Light Table innovative. You say there is, "something special," about it. What is it? It takes either hubris or ignorance to believe your ideas are completely original. Whether Chris is aware of it or not, Light Table is not a new idea. I'm not suggesting it isn't a good one because I believe it is. However the way he worded his post suggests to me that he is probably not aware of the giants upon whose shoulders he now stands. Nobody just picked up a guitar and invented rock-and-roll. The theory or relativity didn't just come to Einstein one day. No good idea is born in a vacuum. I only rain on the parade a little in the hopes that his writing will improve and to raise awareness in people who aren't aware that these are good ideas and that there have been many attempts to develop them.
- seanmcdirmid 14y ago
  Light Table's layout and association between code and UI is much more direct than Smalltalk's; I would say its even better when you consider morphic. The way they've reified execution is also nicely done (seeing what objects exist as they are created). There is a lot of innovations here, and yes, they are probably building on 20 years of related work THAT GO WAY BEYOND SMALLTALK. If he goes into a smalltalk credit, why not Lisp machines? Why not VPLs? Why not every little research project that has attempted this in the past (including my own work)? And he is still correct: the vast majority of programmers haven't been influenced by this at all, we failed, and he is trying again hopefully with something that will work! If he was writing a technical paper, then he could discuss everything in a related work section; but it was a strangeloop talk + blog post, what kind of rigor are you expecting?
  - agentultra 14y ago
    Why not simply be more aware of those things? His blog post made sweeping generalizations about what programming was like twenty years ago that are clearly inaccurate at their worst or at least misleading at best. He doesn't need to cite anything. He could just make fewer generalizations of the sort in his post. Many programmers from twenty years ago were working on the very kinds of projects he is today. His might be better for many reasons than those early attempts but he does himself and his audience a disservice by not being aware of them.

endlessvoid94 14y ago

I was at that talk at UIUC!