6 ms·

Alive Beta – Live Coding in Visual Studio

94 points by Permit 11y ago

ladzoppelin 11y ago
Wow, the site is amazing. Love the keyboard in the background.
- schrags08 11y ago
  http://www.daskeyboard.com/ http://www.daskeyboard.com/
human_afterall 11y ago
I love the new look UI! Looks awesome as usual from you code connect guys.
spigoon 11y ago
I wonder why they went with a "paid beta" vs. a traditional free beta.
- Permit 11y ago
  This is by far the most common question we get asked, and this weekend I'm going to write a full length blog post about that decision. What might shock you even more is that we originally charged to pre-order the alpha version. The short version: - We needed to quickly figure out if we were building a product that people loved and thought was worth paying for. - We're trying to build a product a small number of people love instead of one a large number of people like.[1] If someone loves a product, we've found that they'll pay for it. - The support issues from growing too quickly would overwhelm us. The long version involves us offering a traditional free paid beta for our first product: http://codeconnect.io http://codeconnect.io and the lessons we learned from that experience. [1] http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html
  - Vespasian 11y ago
    These are fair points and I can definitely see where you are coming from. If a free beta is out of the question, maybe a time and/or (severly) feature limited trial version could be possible. You are addressing this on you page however there seems to be no obvious reason why this is not possible at this time. I'm intrigued by the idea and concept of this tool in it's current state and I am definitively looking forward to other languages being supported, however at this time my budget does not allow spending 100$ just because of a very pretty product page. Please don't take this as an attack against what your are building! Judging from personal experience it's really hard to estimate the value of a new tool without the chance to test how well it integrates in your existing workflow and setup or many experience reports of other developers. In the meantime I wish you all the luck and success for this very interesting product. Edit: Did you write about your former experiences with giving out free versions of your software?
  - ghuntley 11y ago
    re: "We needed to quickly figure out if we were building a product that people loved and thought was worth paying for." http://i.imgur.com/F6lz4WA.jpg http://i.imgur.com/F6lz4WA.jpg (purchased)
  - CRidge 11y ago
    I can see your point, but I would never pay for a product like this without a free demo version. These Visual Studio extensions often have the side effect of taking up way too much of the computers resources. Without having a fully functioning (time limited?) version of the product on my machine, working with a large VS solution, I will just move on and probably have forgotten about this by tomorrow... With a free version available, I would have tested it and if it works as well as in the video, I'd most likely pay for it and recommend it to colleagues by the end of the day.
  - JosephRedfern 11y ago
    "We needed to quickly figure out if we were building a product that people loved and thought was worth paying for." - how are people supposed to know if they love it and think it's worth paying for without paying for it in the first place?
jayonsoftware 11y ago
As a C# developer I am tempted to buy, but this paid beta thing is kind of scary
- axefrog 11y ago
  Agreed... though I imagine if you wait until full release they'll probably release a trial version.
  - kittiepryde 11y ago
    On the faq, "All pre-order licenses are valid for one year after the release of Alive v1.0. During this time you will receive all updates, bug fixes and improvements." So at least, there's that.
- Permit 11y ago
  Completely understandable. Another individual on Reddit made the same comment. As programmers, I think we're naturally skeptical of new projects (especially ones that seem to come out of nowhere). This is doubly true when we're asked to pay for something and we can't even try it. We've all heard Kickstarter horror stories and can point to some sort of vaporware that let us down. Here's a testimonial from Chris Sells (one of six "Microsoft Software Legends" and the author of a number of books on C#): https://twitter.com/csells/status/606141631054540800 https://twitter.com/csells/status/606141631054540800 Let me know if there's anything more you'd like to know about Alive or the team behind it.
- bbcbasic 11y ago
  I think they need to offer a 365 day 100% money back guarantee if not satisfied for any reason. Then the buyer takes less risk, the seller still knows they are a 'real buyer' not a freebee seeker because pulling out the credit card is still a commitment, even if you decide to get a refund later.
  - Mandatum 11y ago
    I'd probably just give a 60-day money-back guarantee seeing as 1.0 is set for release around October. By then, if the features you're regularly using aren't ironed out it'd make sense to refund.
aesthetics1 11y ago
Are there some more in-depth demo videos? I'd love to see how/whether it is able to interact with databases, for example. Can I see records directly in my code? Looks like a neat tool.
- ghuntley 11y ago
  Static methods and input data from unit tests only: Why do you mention tests so often? Because of side effects. Frequently, in imperative programming, methods access fields and properties local to the method's class. Tests initialize or mock all necessary resources, classes, connections and properties that the target method will use.
- Permit 11y ago
  Unfortunately we've only got the one video for now. However if you sign up for the newsletter (https://comealive.io/#newsletter https://comealive.io/#newsletter) we'll keep you updated as we make videos of Alive interacting with different codebases.
  - ghuntley 11y ago
    One video? I found two! - https://youtu.be/CMRH1i2PcrE https://youtu.be/CMRH1i2PcrE - https://youtube.com/watch?v=wIvrchnMW8k https://youtube.com/watch?v=wIvrchnMW8k
    - Permit 11y ago
      Yeah I suppose we should probably take the second one down as it's no longer a good representation of the product. (We've overhauled the UI). I think we'll leave it up until we've come up with a good replacement.
joeblau 11y ago
This concept reminds me of http://tmate.io http://tmate.io which I have used many times to help people out. This would be a very helpful product for remote teaching and paired programming.
fake-name 11y ago
Alive support C#. But we plan to include more! If you've got a language suggestion please "support"? Did you mean "supports"? And maybe get someone to copy-edit your homepage.
- Permit 11y ago
  Jeez, that's embarrassing. I'm fixing that now, thanks for the heads up!
- HOLYCOWBATMAN 11y ago
  http://pix-media.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/880/ScreenShot2015-01-08at11.56.55AM.png http://pix-media.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/880/ScreenShot2015-01...
Mandatum 11y ago
Damn this is cool! Does it work with external libraries and project functions? This would be amazing, the amount of times I do this sort of testing in unit test projects considerably hinders my development time. And for $89/yr that's easily worth it! excitement intensifies How do I buy it? I'd like to do a video review, but when I click on "Buy" it links to "https://comealive.io/#" https://comealive.io/#" ... D'oh! Looks like AdBlock breaks everything. Disable it on the page if you want to buy!
- Permit 11y ago
  Yup it should work fine with external libraries and project functions. Basically: If your tests can run it, Alive can run it. That's bizarre that AdBlock breaks it for you. Hopefully everything works now (if not let me know and we can try to figure it out)
  - hayksaakian 11y ago
    Note: You may have innocent seeming paths that get tripped up by adblock -- for example "/banners" anywhere in your file path trips it up
  - Mandatum 11y ago
    Here's my console, there's a few things blocked. Very odd, must be a few false-positives: http://i.imgur.com/RAxDbpZ.png http://i.imgur.com/RAxDbpZ.png There's a reference to: https://comealive.io/fonts/glyphicons-halflings-regular.woff https://comealive.io/fonts/glyphicons-halflings-regular.woff Which doesn't exist (404). Will give it a run when I get home.
seivan 11y ago
Looks amazing. Looks like an improved version of Playgrounds for Xcode. The improved part is that this seems to work for your regular code base, where Playground isn't (as far as I know) bundled with your application. Though I suspect the Xcode team is probably working on that :)
sungeuns 11y ago
Really cool ! Do you guys have any plan to expand other languages or IDEs ?
- Permit 11y ago
  Definitely. Unfortunately each language/IDE takes a pretty long time to support. I'm fairly sure we can (theoretically) grow to support most popular languages outside of C/C++. We take suggestions at: http://github.com/CodeConnect/AliveFeedback http://github.com/CodeConnect/AliveFeedback
  - odonnellryan 11y ago
    I think JetBrains would be a good target, no?
deevus 11y ago
Wow. I so want this! However the exchange rate blows it out to 120 AUD, and I'm a poor student.
revanx_ 11y ago
I don't get it, what are the practicle advantages to using this? To me it just looks like a pointless gimmick. If I write a line of code I know what it will do since otherwise I wouldn't be able to write it in the first place.
- adamnemecek 11y ago
  Have you ever debugged something? Have you ever read code that wasn't written by you?
zuck9 11y ago
Would love VB.NET support.
Avalaxy 11y ago
I'd really like to try this, but the price is wayyy too steep. Especially for a beta. For that price I almost get ReSharper, which does a ton more. I would probably pay $20~$30 for this.
- r3bl 11y ago
  Exactly! Charging that amount of money for the beta version is kind of silly to me.
munr 11y ago
Is the license perpetual or does it need to be renewed each year? The way it's worded on the purchase page sounds like the application will stop working unless the license is renewed each year.

94 points by Permit 11y ago

ladzoppelin 11y ago

Wow, the site is amazing. Love the keyboard in the background.

schrags08 11y ago
http://www.daskeyboard.com/ http://www.daskeyboard.com/

human_afterall 11y ago

I love the new look UI! Looks awesome as usual from you code connect guys.

spigoon 11y ago

I wonder why they went with a "paid beta" vs. a traditional free beta.

Permit 11y ago
This is by far the most common question we get asked, and this weekend I'm going to write a full length blog post about that decision. What might shock you even more is that we originally charged to pre-order the alpha version. The short version: - We needed to quickly figure out if we were building a product that people loved and thought was worth paying for. - We're trying to build a product a small number of people love instead of one a large number of people like.[1] If someone loves a product, we've found that they'll pay for it. - The support issues from growing too quickly would overwhelm us. The long version involves us offering a traditional free paid beta for our first product: http://codeconnect.io http://codeconnect.io and the lessons we learned from that experience. [1] http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html
- Vespasian 11y ago
  These are fair points and I can definitely see where you are coming from. If a free beta is out of the question, maybe a time and/or (severly) feature limited trial version could be possible. You are addressing this on you page however there seems to be no obvious reason why this is not possible at this time. I'm intrigued by the idea and concept of this tool in it's current state and I am definitively looking forward to other languages being supported, however at this time my budget does not allow spending 100$ just because of a very pretty product page. Please don't take this as an attack against what your are building! Judging from personal experience it's really hard to estimate the value of a new tool without the chance to test how well it integrates in your existing workflow and setup or many experience reports of other developers. In the meantime I wish you all the luck and success for this very interesting product. Edit: Did you write about your former experiences with giving out free versions of your software?
- ghuntley 11y ago
  re: "We needed to quickly figure out if we were building a product that people loved and thought was worth paying for." http://i.imgur.com/F6lz4WA.jpg http://i.imgur.com/F6lz4WA.jpg (purchased)
- CRidge 11y ago
  I can see your point, but I would never pay for a product like this without a free demo version. These Visual Studio extensions often have the side effect of taking up way too much of the computers resources. Without having a fully functioning (time limited?) version of the product on my machine, working with a large VS solution, I will just move on and probably have forgotten about this by tomorrow... With a free version available, I would have tested it and if it works as well as in the video, I'd most likely pay for it and recommend it to colleagues by the end of the day.
- JosephRedfern 11y ago
  "We needed to quickly figure out if we were building a product that people loved and thought was worth paying for." - how are people supposed to know if they love it and think it's worth paying for without paying for it in the first place?

jayonsoftware 11y ago

As a C# developer I am tempted to buy, but this paid beta thing is kind of scary

axefrog 11y ago
Agreed... though I imagine if you wait until full release they'll probably release a trial version.
- kittiepryde 11y ago
  On the faq, "All pre-order licenses are valid for one year after the release of Alive v1.0. During this time you will receive all updates, bug fixes and improvements." So at least, there's that.
Permit 11y ago
Completely understandable. Another individual on Reddit made the same comment. As programmers, I think we're naturally skeptical of new projects (especially ones that seem to come out of nowhere). This is doubly true when we're asked to pay for something and we can't even try it. We've all heard Kickstarter horror stories and can point to some sort of vaporware that let us down. Here's a testimonial from Chris Sells (one of six "Microsoft Software Legends" and the author of a number of books on C#): https://twitter.com/csells/status/606141631054540800 https://twitter.com/csells/status/606141631054540800 Let me know if there's anything more you'd like to know about Alive or the team behind it.
bbcbasic 11y ago
I think they need to offer a 365 day 100% money back guarantee if not satisfied for any reason. Then the buyer takes less risk, the seller still knows they are a 'real buyer' not a freebee seeker because pulling out the credit card is still a commitment, even if you decide to get a refund later.
- Mandatum 11y ago
  I'd probably just give a 60-day money-back guarantee seeing as 1.0 is set for release around October. By then, if the features you're regularly using aren't ironed out it'd make sense to refund.

aesthetics1 11y ago

Are there some more in-depth demo videos? I'd love to see how/whether it is able to interact with databases, for example. Can I see records directly in my code? Looks like a neat tool.

ghuntley 11y ago
Static methods and input data from unit tests only: Why do you mention tests so often? Because of side effects. Frequently, in imperative programming, methods access fields and properties local to the method's class. Tests initialize or mock all necessary resources, classes, connections and properties that the target method will use.
Permit 11y ago
Unfortunately we've only got the one video for now. However if you sign up for the newsletter (https://comealive.io/#newsletter https://comealive.io/#newsletter) we'll keep you updated as we make videos of Alive interacting with different codebases.
- ghuntley 11y ago
  One video? I found two! - https://youtu.be/CMRH1i2PcrE https://youtu.be/CMRH1i2PcrE - https://youtube.com/watch?v=wIvrchnMW8k https://youtube.com/watch?v=wIvrchnMW8k
  - Permit 11y ago
    Yeah I suppose we should probably take the second one down as it's no longer a good representation of the product. (We've overhauled the UI). I think we'll leave it up until we've come up with a good replacement.

joeblau 11y ago

This concept reminds me of http://tmate.io http://tmate.io which I have used many times to help people out. This would be a very helpful product for remote teaching and paired programming.

fake-name 11y ago

Alive support C#. But we plan to include more! If you've got a language suggestion please "support"? Did you mean "supports"? And maybe get someone to copy-edit your homepage.

Permit 11y ago
Jeez, that's embarrassing. I'm fixing that now, thanks for the heads up!
HOLYCOWBATMAN 11y ago
http://pix-media.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/880/ScreenShot2015-01-08at11.56.55AM.png http://pix-media.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/880/ScreenShot2015-01...

Mandatum 11y ago

Damn this is cool! Does it work with external libraries and project functions? This would be amazing, the amount of times I do this sort of testing in unit test projects considerably hinders my development time. And for $89/yr that's easily worth it! excitement intensifies How do I buy it? I'd like to do a video review, but when I click on "Buy" it links to "https://comealive.io/#" https://comealive.io/#" ... D'oh! Looks like AdBlock breaks everything. Disable it on the page if you want to buy!

Permit 11y ago
Yup it should work fine with external libraries and project functions. Basically: If your tests can run it, Alive can run it. That's bizarre that AdBlock breaks it for you. Hopefully everything works now (if not let me know and we can try to figure it out)
- hayksaakian 11y ago
  Note: You may have innocent seeming paths that get tripped up by adblock -- for example "/banners" anywhere in your file path trips it up
- Mandatum 11y ago
  Here's my console, there's a few things blocked. Very odd, must be a few false-positives: http://i.imgur.com/RAxDbpZ.png http://i.imgur.com/RAxDbpZ.png There's a reference to: https://comealive.io/fonts/glyphicons-halflings-regular.woff https://comealive.io/fonts/glyphicons-halflings-regular.woff Which doesn't exist (404). Will give it a run when I get home.

seivan 11y ago

Looks amazing. Looks like an improved version of Playgrounds for Xcode. The improved part is that this seems to work for your regular code base, where Playground isn't (as far as I know) bundled with your application. Though I suspect the Xcode team is probably working on that :)

sungeuns 11y ago

Really cool ! Do you guys have any plan to expand other languages or IDEs ?

Permit 11y ago
Definitely. Unfortunately each language/IDE takes a pretty long time to support. I'm fairly sure we can (theoretically) grow to support most popular languages outside of C/C++. We take suggestions at: http://github.com/CodeConnect/AliveFeedback http://github.com/CodeConnect/AliveFeedback
- odonnellryan 11y ago
  I think JetBrains would be a good target, no?

deevus 11y ago

Wow. I so want this! However the exchange rate blows it out to 120 AUD, and I'm a poor student.

revanx_ 11y ago

I don't get it, what are the practicle advantages to using this? To me it just looks like a pointless gimmick. If I write a line of code I know what it will do since otherwise I wouldn't be able to write it in the first place.

adamnemecek 11y ago
Have you ever debugged something? Have you ever read code that wasn't written by you?

zuck9 11y ago

Would love VB.NET support.

Avalaxy 11y ago

I'd really like to try this, but the price is wayyy too steep. Especially for a beta. For that price I almost get ReSharper, which does a ton more. I would probably pay $20~$30 for this.

r3bl 11y ago
Exactly! Charging that amount of money for the beta version is kind of silly to me.

munr 11y ago

Is the license perpetual or does it need to be renewed each year? The way it's worded on the purchase page sounds like the application will stop working unless the license is renewed each year.