I don't quite understand what the difference is between Light Table's modes and IDEs' plugins. Domain-specific components are exactly what make IDEs 'integrated'; without them they are generalised editors. But there is absolutely no difference, as far as I can tell, between Light Table's new SQL mode and an SQL IDE plugin.
I'm personally much more fond of the Unix 'tool approach', in which there are no task-specific modes or plugins, but tools can still be composed ad hoc, as in Plan 9's Acme.
Sure, anything can be built given enough time :) The difference is that those modes can be built in a couple of hours with arbitrary UI and virtually any interactions you can think of. It's hard for me to imagine being able to build any of the things I showed in say Eclipse in any reasonable amount of time.
The idea is that Light Table will be built from the ground up to support very dynamic environmental contexts in which you can place anything.
But, instead compare that to Emacs, these are exactly the sorts of things people can and do do in emacs in reasonable amounts of time. And exactly why emacs has many great tools, from paredit-mode to SLIME.
The comparison to emacs isn't meant as a slight to LightTable either, but please, let's not forgot the past when creating the future.
I've seen a lot of cool stuff in Emacs, but I haven't seen anything nearly this nice done in any reasonable amount of time. Emacs is a predominately text-based thing. Light table is not.
With that said, wouldn't his "It's hard for me to imagine being able to build anything I showed in say Eclipse in any reasonable amount of time" comment also apply to Emacs?
Generally speaking, it ends up much less graphical, which is the major failing of Emacs in comparison to Lights Table, but if the functionality is what you are looking for, instead of the pretties then Emacs has similar development time. I'm not saying there is no value in Lights Table, but we should just be clear on exactly what the advantages are.
Same. At least you have my upvote, for what it's worth!
Light table looks to me (with all the respect due to the work of the authors) like a fad where people get all hyped up about a product. I mean there's nothing revolutionary and while looking at the video I was thinking "boy this is too confusing!". I also believe that when the project is going to have 500+ lines of code per file, the way it's done now, is going to be horrible to deal with it!
There are other stuff that bug me out: when I program I don't want rounded borders and everything. I don't want 40 different colors.
Maybe it's all a fad (although I personally doubt it) but I think it's a step towards a revolution in it's own little way however it turns out. Modern IDEs are extremely cluttered and (imho) messy. Light Table seems like a refreshing change of pace.
As for the rounded corners, I think it really is a matter of personal preference and they're definitely not going to affect my ability to program. Colors are just used to visual convey information seamlessly (think syntax highlighting). I think they can really be put to good use.
I do agree with you that huge "files" (the concept seems to be abstracted by the IDE) could get messy. However, I trust the Light Table guys to get it right :)
Watch it again. It's not so much the LOC per file that matters, it's the size of your functions / methods. Notice when light table pulls up the relevant code being used by a call it's method specific and not file specific.
Isn't that the whole point? To me this looks pretty amazing.
The one thing that stands out is the "there's nothing revolutionary" comment. Have you watched the videos this guy puts out? If there is something like this already around, please link me to it so I can use it!
I'm personally much more fond of the Unix 'tool approach', in which there are no task-specific modes or plugins, but tools can still be composed ad hoc, as in Plan 9's Acme.