Nightlight

Dev tools

code editor

SHOW HN2016

195points
63comments
#139of 2,264 in 2016
Top 7%of 2016 by points

How HN took it

MixedNo clear lean

10 positive, 15 neutral or asking, 4 mixed, 9 critical, out of 38 comments about the project. Thread score +0.13.

Idea: 9 for, 5 againstDesign: 0 for, 3 againstExecution: 1 for, 1 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Clever approach of running the editor inside the application process

    From 3 comments
    • This is actually really creative and clever! In fact it's the first project of it's kind that I've ever heard of! Basically it's a library that runs a web server that serves a…
      sdegutis on HN
    • Agreed! The author mentioned Smalltalk and it instantly clicked for me. Having a live programming environment sounds awesome, it sounds like it will fit my thinking pattern…
      tunaoftheland on HN
    • Just wanted to repeat my sentiment in another thread, that I love this approach to problem solving. The outcome appears to be a tradeoff, but one that simplifies the hard part…
      tunaoftheland on HN
  • Live programming and Smalltalk-like interactivity

    From 3 comments
    • The possibilities of this thing blow my mind. Very cool idea.
      swalsh on HN
    • Agreed! The author mentioned Smalltalk and it instantly clicked for me. Having a live programming environment sounds awesome, it sounds like it will fit my thinking pattern…
      tunaoftheland on HN
    • This is amazing. Could you provide a "starter image" in the form of, say, an android .apk ? That would get me started on clojure very quickly (that would be the smalltalk way)
      slim on HN

Objections

  • Embedding an IDE in the project is a dependency and security concern for production

    From 3 comments
    • I like the idea of a browser based IDE. I like the idea of an IDE for a lisp-like language that actually offers first-class auto-completion. I don't like the idea of embedding it…
      gravypod on HN
    • I wouldn't want to risk something this critical being in my project. I'm stupid so I try and limit my own attack surface against myself.
      gravypod on HN
    • Yea it seems like a great project but I don't really like to think of my IDE as a dependency of my code but rather my code as a dependency of my IDE.
      gravypod on HN
  • Offers little over Emacs with CIDER or SLIME

    From 3 comments
    • I don't really see how the integration would be any better than what I'm getting already from Emacs: I can already patch the code live, etc, through a REPL, and run the code as I…
      qwertyuiop924 on HN
    • I am ignorant of SLIME/CIDER (though I think I've used the latter with Clojure). Do they have access to the same memory space as the running application and the ability to…
      tunaoftheland on HN
    • That's true, but the practical effect (having access to application internals, interacting with live program state, the ability to connect to a live program and hotpatch it, even…
      qwertyuiop924 on HN
  • Toolbar buttons duplicate well-known shortcuts

    From 2 comments
    • This is actually really creative and clever! In fact it's the first project of it's kind that I've ever heard of! Basically it's a library that runs a web server that serves a…
      sdegutis on HN
    • Neat! Better than nothing! Still not as context-aware as IntelliJ does (sometimes), but it's hard to beat Jetbrains, especially as a sole developer. Plus Clojure doesn't exactly…
      sdegutis on HN

Requests

  • Credit Light Table as inspiration

    From 1 comment
    • Wish it credited Light Table as inspiration (http://lighttable.com/) :/ Even the term "instarepl" is taken from LT's creator, Chris Granger. Of course LT's inspiration is…
      fedess on HN
  • Support for Google App Engine

    From 1 comment
    • I would love to see if this works on Google App Engine. GAE has some strict requirements, as far as what its apps are allowed to do, but, up until now, it's been a pretty closed…
      Jeaye on HN

Questions

  • How is code completion easier than with an nREPL-based editor?

    From 1 comment
    • > "More powerful editors like Cider and Cursive manage to do this with some very complex machinery that I could never duplicate. Instead, I decided to rethink the problem. Since…
      sdegutis on HN
  • Can it be excluded from production builds?

    From 3 comments
    • Maybe a Clojure equivalent to NPM's "devDependencies" can manage something like this, so that it gets excluded from the final deployment JAR. It's been a while since I'd done…
      tunaoftheland on HN
    • Both the major Clojure / ClojureScript build tools - boot and leiningen - support dev only dependencies.
      macmac on HN
    • Leiningen makes this easy. During development, the :dev profile is run (joined with the project definition), but it's excluded from builds (JAR, WAR, etc.).
      eyelidlessness on HN

Alternatives named

  • Emacs with CIDER or SLIME

    From 2 comments
    • I don't really see how the integration would be any better than what I'm getting already from Emacs: I can already patch the code live, etc, through a REPL, and run the code as I…
      qwertyuiop924 on HN
    • CIDER allow for many of the same features, IIRC. But you likely already knew that, and I'm primarily working in Scheme with Geiser, so what do I know?
      qwertyuiop924 on HN
  • Cursive

    From 2 comments
    • Something more advanced yet similar to Nightcode is something I am definitely excited to try as an alternative to Emacs and Cursive. Also gotta try this with play-clj to see how…
      runeblaze on HN
    • Actually, Cursive doesn't do this, it analyses source for its completions.
      lemming on HN
  • Nightcode

    From 1 comment
    • It's the same author, so I'm assuming that this is his spiritual continuation of Nightcode with a huge update. EDIT: They are going to remain separate, here's what he wrote on…
      yojex on HN
  • Light Table

    From 1 comment
    • Wish it credited Light Table as inspiration (http://lighttable.com/) :/ Even the term "instarepl" is taken from LT's creator, Chris Granger. Of course LT's inspiration is…
      fedess on HN

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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