5 ms·

While there's a lot of talk here about the future of IDEs, difficulties with current hardware and other challenges, I'd like to take a moment to talk about what

by IanCal 12y ago

While there's a lot of talk here about the future of IDEs, difficulties with current hardware and other challenges, I'd like to take a moment to talk about what's actually in the video. This fills me with almost childish glee. This is a virtual reality, where you can pop up a "god window" and create/mess with a world around you. Even just what's in the video, making some cubes move and change colour is wonderful. It's fun! Remember the early bits of amazement at programming? Where you could make the computer say your name or draw a square? How much cooler would that be in VR?

leeoniya 12y ago
while it's neat that you can type code into a window in the VR space, this is far cooler (just add VR): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfxG_uB66vI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfxG_uB66vI
rasur 12y ago
Did you ever catch a look at (or play with) OpenCroquet (which then morphed into OpenCobalt and... kinda stalled, from what I can gather). Croquet was this (but without the Oculus) in 2007. I miss it, but it went nowhere, but.. that's Smalltalk for you - seems to scare people for some reason.
justifier 12y ago
do you have an oculus? i argue against people calling the oculus virtual reality (i) that child like glee is warranted in a vr scenario, but what you are seeing demo'd here is digital stereoscopy . (i) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8347450 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8347450
- unclebunkers 12y ago
  You're citing yourself??? Fuck dude, go outside for a bit, get some fresh air.
nightski 12y ago
The thing is though you can do this today without the VR glasses. Sure the VR glasses offer a coolness factor, and I am excited for that, but I don't see the revolution here yet. My problem is that it lacks imagination. Let's just take our text editor over to the VR world. Not come up with a new method of interacting with code utilizing VR.
- IanCal 12y ago
  > The thing is though you can do this today without the VR glasses. Yes, and I think live coding is pretty cool. > but I don't see the revolution here yet. Neither do I, but I don't think it needs to be. It certainly didn't seem to be sold as that. That was part of the reason for my post actually, that people are alternately seeing this as the next big thing or falling short of some incredible goal. It's neither, it's just cool. > My problem is that it lacks imagination. Well feel free to create something else incredible, and I'll be happy to find that awesome as well. This doesn't hold anyone back, it doesn't stop anything and it isn't being billed as TheNewWave(tm), it's just an interesting experiment combining a few different bits of tech together. It's a drastic shame to see people poke holes in something just because it isn't world changing.
  - nightski 12y ago
    You don't need to down vote if you disagree. I was contributing to the conversation. Either way, in my opinion it's valuable feedback. If I was working on something like this, I'd want to hear what people really thought. Not useless cheerleading. I did not poke holes - I gave suggestions. Look for alternate methods of input not just rehashing the same methods from a desktop. Also I am working on something on my own. Which is why I thought I'd give feedback. I encountered the same issues myself.
    - IanCal 12y ago
      > You don't need to down vote if you disagree. I'm not sure if that was aimed at me, but if so you can't downvote replies to your own comments (at least I can't, maybe there's a higher karma threshold where you can but I doubt it).
m_mueller 12y ago
This is pretty much how I imagined Notch's sadly abandoned space game project that had a programmable CPU as the heart of your ships. I hope someone takes over his torch on this, I'd love a fully fleshed out programmer's game. Imagine using such a thing in programming class as an introduction.
wildpeaks 12y ago
Reminds me of Worldbuilder [1], a scifi short about a VR interface for editing the world around you. I kinda like the "grab object & kiss to save" gesture: it wouldn't make sense in 2D but feels natural in VR, although "grab & push object in your brain" might be easier implement to represent a save function. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzFpg271sm8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzFpg271sm8
- IanCal 12y ago
  That looks really interesting, thanks.
elb0w 12y ago
i cant wait to make lawnmower man a realtiy
- sitkack 12y ago
  I have been mowing lawns and popping nootropics from Brin, not smart yet. waiting. mowing.
bjt 12y ago
For a year or so I worked as a contract programmer on the inworld content team for Second Life. I didn't have VR, and the language I programmed in (LSL) was even worse than Javascript, but it was still incredibly fun to use code to shape the world around me. It's even more fun when you can do that in a shared space and see others interacting with your creations. Someday there will be something like Second Life with Oculus support and a decent programming environment, and that will be awesome.
- jpindar 12y ago
  InWorldz is working on it, or at least talking about eventually adding both Oculus support and another language. They've already made considerable improvements to LSL and to the grid and viewer software.
- vlunkr 12y ago
  Second life looks like a great game that I would never play. Most people on it seem to be only interested in the social aspect, but it's pretty awesome that you can create programmable objects and sell them.
Skywing 12y ago
While watching the video, I kept hoping he'd look down at the cubes and "jump down" to them. Like, enable gravity and jump down onto the cubes as a player. That'd have been awesome.
- oneweekwonder 12y ago
  Just for interest sake, blender recently added such functionality.

by IanCal 12y ago

leeoniya 12y ago

while it's neat that you can type code into a window in the VR space, this is far cooler (just add VR): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfxG_uB66vI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfxG_uB66vI

rasur 12y ago

Did you ever catch a look at (or play with) OpenCroquet (which then morphed into OpenCobalt and... kinda stalled, from what I can gather). Croquet was this (but without the Oculus) in 2007. I miss it, but it went nowhere, but.. that's Smalltalk for you - seems to scare people for some reason.

justifier 12y ago

do you have an oculus? i argue against people calling the oculus virtual reality (i) that child like glee is warranted in a vr scenario, but what you are seeing demo'd here is digital stereoscopy . (i) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8347450 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8347450

unclebunkers 12y ago
You're citing yourself??? Fuck dude, go outside for a bit, get some fresh air.

nightski 12y ago

The thing is though you can do this today without the VR glasses. Sure the VR glasses offer a coolness factor, and I am excited for that, but I don't see the revolution here yet. My problem is that it lacks imagination. Let's just take our text editor over to the VR world. Not come up with a new method of interacting with code utilizing VR.

IanCal 12y ago
> The thing is though you can do this today without the VR glasses. Yes, and I think live coding is pretty cool. > but I don't see the revolution here yet. Neither do I, but I don't think it needs to be. It certainly didn't seem to be sold as that. That was part of the reason for my post actually, that people are alternately seeing this as the next big thing or falling short of some incredible goal. It's neither, it's just cool. > My problem is that it lacks imagination. Well feel free to create something else incredible, and I'll be happy to find that awesome as well. This doesn't hold anyone back, it doesn't stop anything and it isn't being billed as TheNewWave(tm), it's just an interesting experiment combining a few different bits of tech together. It's a drastic shame to see people poke holes in something just because it isn't world changing.
- nightski 12y ago
  You don't need to down vote if you disagree. I was contributing to the conversation. Either way, in my opinion it's valuable feedback. If I was working on something like this, I'd want to hear what people really thought. Not useless cheerleading. I did not poke holes - I gave suggestions. Look for alternate methods of input not just rehashing the same methods from a desktop. Also I am working on something on my own. Which is why I thought I'd give feedback. I encountered the same issues myself.
  - IanCal 12y ago
    > You don't need to down vote if you disagree. I'm not sure if that was aimed at me, but if so you can't downvote replies to your own comments (at least I can't, maybe there's a higher karma threshold where you can but I doubt it).

m_mueller 12y ago

This is pretty much how I imagined Notch's sadly abandoned space game project that had a programmable CPU as the heart of your ships. I hope someone takes over his torch on this, I'd love a fully fleshed out programmer's game. Imagine using such a thing in programming class as an introduction.

wildpeaks 12y ago

Reminds me of Worldbuilder [1], a scifi short about a VR interface for editing the world around you. I kinda like the "grab object & kiss to save" gesture: it wouldn't make sense in 2D but feels natural in VR, although "grab & push object in your brain" might be easier implement to represent a save function. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzFpg271sm8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzFpg271sm8

IanCal 12y ago
That looks really interesting, thanks.

elb0w 12y ago

i cant wait to make lawnmower man a realtiy

sitkack 12y ago
I have been mowing lawns and popping nootropics from Brin, not smart yet. waiting. mowing.

bjt 12y ago

For a year or so I worked as a contract programmer on the inworld content team for Second Life. I didn't have VR, and the language I programmed in (LSL) was even worse than Javascript, but it was still incredibly fun to use code to shape the world around me. It's even more fun when you can do that in a shared space and see others interacting with your creations. Someday there will be something like Second Life with Oculus support and a decent programming environment, and that will be awesome.

jpindar 12y ago
InWorldz is working on it, or at least talking about eventually adding both Oculus support and another language. They've already made considerable improvements to LSL and to the grid and viewer software.
vlunkr 12y ago
Second life looks like a great game that I would never play. Most people on it seem to be only interested in the social aspect, but it's pretty awesome that you can create programmable objects and sell them.

Skywing 12y ago

While watching the video, I kept hoping he'd look down at the cubes and "jump down" to them. Like, enable gravity and jump down onto the cubes as a player. That'd have been awesome.

oneweekwonder 12y ago
Just for interest sake, blender recently added such functionality.