

Light Table Is On Kickstarter - ibdknox
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/306316578/light-table

======
ibdknox
Just added this update:

EDIT: Also, these changes will take effect for everyone who has already
pledged at these levels. Though if you could, please switch - if the old ones
have 0 pledges I can delete them.

Unfortunately I can't change the pricing structure in place, but based on the
feedback we've gotten so far I've added a set of new rewards - all of which
are better than their previous ones. :)

$15 - A license and acknowledgement on the contributor list

$50 - A license and early beta access

$100 - A license, early beta access, and participation in feedback rounds

$200 - Two licenses, pre-beta access, and participation in feedback rounds

All the higher rewards will also of course include participation in the
feedback rounds. Ultimately, this should address people's concerns of buying
something before it exists, but providing the opportunity to be a part of it
at a lower price point.

~~~
james33
Awesome, you sir have just gotten a new pledge! I am much more confident
knowing that you'll listen to feedback.

~~~
sterling312
Just a thought that popped into my head. Assuming that the product issued in
the end is going to be the same for everybody. And assume that the highest
contributor that gets to put in the feedback generally improves the software.
This creates a free loading problem for those who contributed less (myself
included) for the same product. Even if it's a positive externality for the
general backers, I wonder if there is a way for Kickstarter to properly
compensate for such externality.

------
ForrestN
I think the kickstarter page could be improved.

More details about the money and why you need it, what our donation will
accomplish aside from the vague message about how more people get things done
faster. How much are you paying yourself? How many other people?

More information about the end product (people are asking about OS for
example), the timeline, and you and your qualifications to run the project. I
gather you have been programming for a long time and work at Microsoft, but
that doesn't prove you'll be able to deliver. For all I know you're a famous
hacker, but not knowing that, not knowing if I can use the end product or when
I will get it, and not being given a simple, compelling argument (rather than
a detailed description of the idea) makes me less interested in participating.

That said I love the idea and really hope you are successful!

~~~
ibdknox
I just added this:

And why should we believe you can deliver?

I've been programming professionally for 8 years, during which I've built
websites large and small (puma.com, newbalance.com, etc), helped design the
future of Visual Studio, and released numerous open source libraries and
frameworks. While at Microsoft I was the Program Manager for the C# and VB IDE
where I spent countless hours behind a one way mirror learning how people
develop things. Since then I've steeped myself in the world of startups and
OSS. I worked with the guys at ReadyForZero to build readyforzero.com, created
the Noir web framework, built the SQL abstraction layer Korma, and released a
host of ClojureScript libraries to make client side development a breeze -
many of which are now featured in the canonical books for Clojure. Even more
recently, I built Bret Victor's live game editor after watching his inspiring
"Inventing on Principle" talk. I have a history of building useful software
and a hunger for making developers more efficient, as well as experience
leading and shaping the the future of a billion dollar project.

~~~
jmitcheson
FYI I personally found your experience on the MS Visual Studio team the most
convincing credential, may I humbly suggest that you lead with that whenever
possible.

PS. Good luck.

~~~
peterhajas
I agree, this makes me the most confident in the final product.

------
Impossible
I really want to back this but $100 is pretty steep for beta access. Even $50
is a little pricey for a tool that I like the goals of, but find it unlikely
that I'll use it for a commercial product anytime soon. Any chance you could
move around the reward tiers?

Maybe I'm just spoiled from spending $15-$20 on Kickstarter games and getting
beta access, but as long as Light Table looks like an awesome toy instead of
something I can build commercial software with it's hard to justify dropping
$100 on it. That said I'll probably throw in $50.

~~~
johns
For developer tools you use every day, I think $100 is a relatively small
amount and in line with what a lot of text editors and IDEs charge for (and
less than many of them).

~~~
fishtoaster
For a real product, yes. For a product that doesn't exist yet, may turn to
vaporware, may be buggy, may end up poorly designed, may be unusably slow,
might not be able to operate as well as described, etc etc, $100 might seem a
bit steep.

~~~
melling
People spend $2 a day for coffee. Two movie tickets in NYC can cost $30, or
more. I think $50 is pretty cheap. Even $100 is not that bad. If it saves you
an hour a month, it has already paid for itself. The coffee, well, not really.

~~~
LordPatience
You say that, but would you forsake coffee for 50 days for an IDE?

~~~
melling
It's only 25 days if you can wait until after the beta. :-)

It's only $100 so there's no need to forsake anything. I bought a personal
license for IntelliJ IDEA, for example, and I upgrade to every new version. I
believe in buying software that makes me more productive.

I find it kind of strange that people in the software business have such a
hard time paying for software. I hope this doesn't rub off on the general
population.

------
siganakis
So the product will be open source, but you need a license to download it? So
its open source, but not "free". Are there any well known licenses that
support this?

I take it that it also means that the license will not allow for you to copy /
redistribute Light Table? Does it still really qualify as open source then?

Will they allow for contributors to the core of the product and if so, what
rights do contributors need to sign away?

That said, I think its an awesome project!

~~~
jaredsohn
In some ways it sounds like the Microsoft "Shared Source" where you are able
to view the code for some of their commercial products for debugging purposes
but not redistribute it.

One concern is they mention that it will make use of existing open source
software; presumably they mean more BSD-style code or LGPL code rather than
GPL code since the license they are proposing seems incompatible with the GPL.

------
mattdeboard
The strength of his past contributions alone is enough to convince me to
donate. You can't throw a football in Clojure land without hitting a high-
quality contribution of his.

------
icco
Does anyone else find it awkward to back a project where the person running
the project has never backed another project? I'm stoked about this project,
It's just a feeling I've noticed consistently when looking at Kickstarter
campaigns.

~~~
brehaut
kickstarters are not the sole way people contribute to projects and
communities. ibdknox has created some very popular (in the clojure community
anyway) software (noir, korma etc) that a lot of people build on top of.
Surely this should count for something.

~~~
icco
Oh for sure, I was just curious about people and the platform. It's the only
listed metric below a creators name, so if you didn't know who he was, it
would be hard to verify. That being said, I've already donated to this.

------
ibdknox
Just added this to the description:

If we hit $300k, Python will be the third language to be supported out of the
gate.

~~~
Impossible
What would you have to raise to promise Lua support ;)? I imagine Ruby would
come in at $400K-$500K.

~~~
alberth
+1 for Lua

I'd donate $500 right now if Lua support will be available in v1.

Edit: $500 (originally $100)

~~~
Tuna-Fish
I rather doubt there will be that much point in that. Based on what he has
spoken of the architecture, doing 3rd-party language support should be
extraordinarily easy. Putting more languages into v1 will really only push it
back -- the actual lua support should probably be done by someone with
experience hacking lua.

------
collypops
I'm not upset that higher pledge tiers don't include the rewards of previous
tiers. This is not always cost effective, especially when you factor in
T-shirt production and whatnot. I do believe however that the higher levels
should give more value to the backer, where value can be reasonable
calculated. Specifically, I take issue with the higher of these two tiers:

> PLEDGE $1,000 OR MORE - 10 licenses of Light Table and acknowledgement as a
> backer of the project.

> PLEDGE $5,000 OR MORE - 25 licenses of Light Table and acknowledgement as a
> sponsor of the project.

How can a pledging 5x the amount of the previous tier give you only 2.5x the
value?

~~~
Scriptor
Well, you get your logo on the home page for a year, which could be very good
advertising if the project becomes big. However, I have no clue how much the
advertising would actually be valued for a typical company.

------
mwsherman
I’d like to know what he plans to do with $200,000. Is he staffing up a
company?

~~~
ibdknox
It'll take more than just me. It'll be a team effort.

~~~
bprater
$200k feels like a pretty random number -- and maybe even a bit high. Draw
people into your story and elaborate on where the $200k will go. What kind of
a team are you going to put together? A team of 8? A team of 2? Water-front
office space? Time share private helicopter?

This is the moment to really create momentum for the project -- if I were in
your shoes, I'd spend a bunch of time today really refining the project
details on Kickstarter. (Other successful Kickstarter projects might provide
some great ideas.)

------
esmevane
Without disagreeing with the prevailing opinions on the reward rankings, may I
observe that it's interesting how Kickstarter has transformed donations for
innovation into a shopping cart experience?

So many folks in this thread, myself included, have adopted a stance of "I
don't know if pledging this much is worth it!"

Well, we don't have to, right? We can just pledge $1 if we like it and want to
help a bit.

Except we're talking about this product as though it is on sale and priced too
high.

[edit]: Cleared up language.

~~~
JackC
_it's interesting how Kickstarter has transformed donations for innovation
into a shopping cart experience_

I've been going back and forth about this, and I think the phrasing of the
particular Kickstarter project controls whether it's more a donation or
shopping cart experience. Think about the conversation like this:

\- "Hey, can you chip in some money so I can spend a bunch of time making a
really cool piece of software?" \- "Sure, I'd love to! I can spare $25. When
do I get to play with your build?" \- "Oh, $25 isn't enough for you to access
the software. That's just a donation. But you can buy a copy when it comes
out." \- "..."

If the pitch is "chip in what you can, and we'll make a cool thing for
everyone," then you set the stage for donations for innovation. If the pitch
is "pay enough, and we'll give you a license to our cool thing," then you're
offering a shopping cart experience. Which is _fine_ , I use shopping carts
all the time, but it's a different and less exciting thing.

This is maybe different with physical products -- if there's a cost per
product, there obviously needs to be a minimum donation to get one. But with a
virtual product, the reason you set a high donation threshold to get a copy is
that you're selling a product rather than asking for a donation. Again, that's
totally reasonable, but it's not as exciting to be part of.

As I keep thinking about it, I think there might be an uncanny valley effect
here. If a software company I really like, like the Omni Group or Macromates,
said they were doing presales of a revolutionary new product and needed me to
buy in so it could get made, I would be psyched to do it. But this is halfway
in between -- it's neither "donate to my cool project" nor "pre-order my cool
product," but "donate to my cool product." I think that's where our gears
start grinding a little.

I'm still up in the air about whether to donate to/purchase this one or not.
Interesting stuff.

------
ibdknox
Clarification on the closed source plugins:

That bit of text was misleading, the plugins that would be closed source are
not the ones that would result immediately from this project, but instead
domain specific plugins that wouldn't have broad appeal. All the language
plugins will be open.

~~~
th
I really think you should clarify the expected terms of the license.

I would gladly throw $50 to you if you released this under a MIT (or similar)
license. Even if I never switch from vim, I feel my $50 would be well-spent
bringing a (hopefully) awesome _free_ IDE into the world.

If this isn't actually free software but only open source, I still might
purchase a license for myself, but I think it's fair that this is mentioned
upfront.

------
sev
I think the $50 mark to get a license is a little steep.

Besides that, the video quality on the Kickstart home page is quite bad; I
tried to see what was going on so I put it in full-screen mode and couldn't
read anything properly.

------
frio
I'll happily chip in some money, but having read recently about how Star
Command's money burnt down ([http://www.1up.com/news/star-command-kickstarter-
funding-qui...](http://www.1up.com/news/star-command-kickstarter-funding-
quickly-disappear)) I suspect you might have shot yourself in the foot a bit
by offering the t-shirts at such a cheap rate.

Either way, I've put some cash in the pot :).

------
rexreed
I'm confused about what Kickstarter will accept for software projects and
which ones they won't. My latest project was rejected, but it was also a
developer app. What is the guideline for what they will accept?

------
grandalf
I was hoping it'd be open sourced. On the other hand, maybe Chris will do
amazing things if he has the ability to work full time on light table.

~~~
rbxbx
_ahem_

    
    
        Will it be open source?
    
        I'm a firm believer in open source software and open
        source technologies. I can guarantee you that Light Table 
        will be built on top of the technologies that are freely 
        available to us today. As such, I believe it only fair 
        that the core of Light Table be open sourced once it is 
        launched, while some of the plugins may remained closed 
        source. At some level, this is an experiment in how open 
        source and business can mix - it will be educational for 
        us all.

~~~
jurre
Yes, but the rewards also mention a license, that will apparently be based on
'pay what you think it's worth'. It all seems very vague to me and I'm not
sure how it all will work. Might just be me though.

~~~
endlessvoid94
This is what investing is like.

------
speg
I hate when pledges don't include the lower rewards. How can I get a t-shirt
and a license?

~~~
mey
A few recent vets have indicated the issues with having rollups of previous
tiers

See [http://zefrank.tumblr.com/post/20122841731/kickstarter-
post-...](http://zefrank.tumblr.com/post/20122841731/kickstarter-post-mortem)

"Be careful with waterfalling rewards (having each category include all
previous ones) — We had t-shirts in too many tiers; and they ended up being
one of the most expensive rewards"

~~~
ibdknox
This was the thing I was worried about. Both in terms of the cost in time,
shipping, and materials. That being said, if people really want t-shirts we'll
find another, better way to make that happen :D

~~~
leviathant
Doing tshirts seems like a simple way to raise cash or reward people, until
you've done tshirts for the first time. Making sure you have a quality
product, handling inventory and fulfillment, if you've never managed physical
products before, it can be overwhelming, and I've seen that bite people in the
ass.

I pre-sold tshirts to fund a music news website about ten years ago. I only
sold about 35 shirts, but given that I was in school and working two part time
jobs in addition to keeping my site going as a hobby, I found even fulfilling
just those 35 shirts to be way more work than I really wanted, and I haven't
bothered selling shirts since.

Although after everything was mailed off, I did make enough to cover hosting
for pretty decent amount of time.

~~~
smackfu
Of course, selling t-shirts for $30 should make a lot of that pain acceptable.

~~~
TillE
After subtracting the cost of the shirt, shipping, and your time, that leaves
you with what, $10 each?

It's not terrible, but it's nowhere near as efficient as selling digital
goods.

------
vibrunazo
Should put something like "if we pass the X goal, then it will be truly _free_
, no licensing holding progress back".

Then I would be excited to donate :)

~~~
TomasSedovic
I don't mind paying for the software. If it ends up being as cool as it looks,
I'll happily part with the cash.

But I would love the promise of open source and not open core. Especially
since the current description is so vague.

"some of the plugins may remained [sic] closed source"

What kinds of plugins? Every supported language is a plugin -- will Python or
Ruby end up closed? Or the inline HTML rendering?

If Chris promised a true commitment to keeping this open, I'd promise to pay
up. With Kickstarter, I could even prove it.

How about a KS reward that would give me the access to all everything Light
Table related that the team builds?

Also note that even GPL allows you to sell the software _and_ sell the code
separately. Ditto for other licenses. I'd pay for the code. Not sure how
viable that actually is, but it's something to consider.

Lastly, how's the development going to look like? Are the open source parts
going to be done in the open (as most successful open source projects do) or
will it be Android-like code dump on the release date?

------
pluies_public
I might have overlooked it, but it doesn't seem to say which OS Light Table
will run on?

I would back it up for Linux, for example, but a Windows version wouldn't be
useful for me.

~~~
ibdknox
It'll support windows/linux/mac

~~~
danielpal
This is too much. I've never seen an editor that runs well on the 3 of them.
If you had said Mac or just Linux, I could believe you. I am really
interested, but I am afraid of this becoming vaporware.

~~~
frio
Ignoring the usual "vim", "emacs" etc., do try Sublime Text 2, if all you're
after is an editor. So far it's proved unfailingly excellent for me :).

FWIW Chris stated in a previous post that Lighttable would be built on
embedding CodeMirror, which, being web-based, should make creating cross-
platform builds much easier.

~~~
politician
Hear, hear on ST2. I don't have to do anything more than let people see me use
it before they switch.

------
snprbob86
Chris: Just wanted to say "Good luck!"

Also, I saw you mentioned a patched Clojure compiler for column information.
Did you use my patch? :-) Let me know how I can help with Clojure and
ClojureScript contributions. I find working on the compilers to be a lot of
fun.

------
jurre
I feel the part about it being open source is either misleading or your
description is just really vague, even after the update. First you mention the
core is open source, then you mention we need a license for which we can pay
as much as we'd like. Now that last part doesn't seem very open source to me.

Fair enough if you want to make money with this, that's your right and I don't
think anyone will try to stop you. But don't say it's open source when it's
not.

Could you explain, if Light Table is released, what will I have to do to
obtain a copy? If payment is involved, please explain to me how it is open
source. What license will be used (MIT, GPL etc, if you roll your own, please
outline the major parts)?

~~~
th
I was confused by this at first also. Open source means you can look at the
source code. Sometimes it means more than that (often depending on who is
using the term).

GNU's criticism of open source: [http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-
misses-the-point.h...](http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-
point.html)

------
Void_
This is no open source.

When I saw the Light Table demo, I wanted to build it for CoffeeScript, and I
could do it.

This morning I found this, I got excited because I could use your interface
and create a plugin for CoffeeScript. I was hoping I would be able to simply
clone it and start working.

Instead I'm asked to pay X dollars to only get access to early beta?

> I'm a firm believer in open source

Yeah? Then make it open source. Develop it publicly on GitHub. Let people
contribute. Don't make them pay.

> As such, I believe it only fair that the core of Light Table be open sourced
> once it is launched.

I believe I just gave you hundred dollars. Can I have the beta access now?

~~~
frio
Developing things in the open can be a drag for a product first getting off
the ground. People pull in different directions, want different things, and
fork the project (and the community) in doing so. I'm a strong believer in
free (as in speech) software, but the practicalities of doing so too soon in a
product's lifecycle can kill it.

Personally, I'm more than happy for them to get the core done properly, and
open-source later.

------
nl
$10,000 for a logo (and link?) from the front page of a popular project like
this could be pretty cheap SEO.

I know Apache (the foundation, not the software) used to have a problem with
sponsors who were basically buying links. Apparently sponsoring Apache was
cheaper than trying to buy links on comparatively ranked sites.

It looks like there could be at least one company on
<http://www.apache.org/foundation/thanks.html> at the moment that still falls
into that category.

------
beefman
I just pledged $50. I did it for the license. As I did so, I realized: this
must mean Light Table isn't going to be free software. Presumably I'm getting
it at a discount for being an investor. Does it adequately compensate me for
the risk of buying a nonexistent product? Shouldn't I get some percentage of
its profits, if it's not going to be free software after an injection of more
than $200K? Does the license give me lifetime upgrades, or only the first
version?

These were my thoughts as I clicked through the Amazon payment buttons.

~~~
james33
The problem is that it appears that $50 is not a discount on the final price
at all, so you really get no added value by pledging money to help him make
this a reality more than a year before you'll ever see anything.

~~~
beefman
He's now added a $15 license option, so I changed my pledge. He hasn't
responded about the longevity of the license.

~~~
james33
Yes, I've now pledged at the $50 level now that he added beta access to that.

------
jamesaguilar
I am considering contributing but I don't have a sense of how long my vision
needs to be. Do you have any sense of when a working alpha would ship?

~~~
siganakis
From the pledge section:

$50 gets you access in May 2013 $100 gets you access in December 2012 $200
gets you access in October 2012 $500 gets you access in August 2012 $1000+
gets you access in May

~~~
jamesaguilar
Ok, I will probably hold off on contributing then. I had alpha access for
Sublime Text 2 for $60, and that seems reasonable to me. A $50 400 day pre-
order is a little more than I can handle.

------
SatvikBeri
I signed up on Kickstarter just for Light Table. Now I can't wait until
December!

------
devin
I pledged $500. The only reason I'm being public about it is because I see
people in here complaining about the cost of a license and wanting their
dollars to translate into something more than this project simply becoming a
reality.

I don't have a barrel full of money by any stretch of the imagination, but
given all of the lispers and schemers on Hacker News, pg's essays, and so on,
I find it surprising that there would be as much hesitation as there is about
paying $50 for some of smalltalk's greatest hits coupled with an environment
that lowers the barrier to entry for people to dig into the best modern lisp
around.

I'm donating because I want to live in a better place, not because I want a
license. The cost of _not_ funding a project that could mainstream so many
lost and forgotten great ideas while simultaneously promoting some of the best
new ones, seems sort of like a crime against the craft of programming in
general.

I mean no offense, just an observation.

------
xlevus
Why is the first tangible reward a t-shirt and not the product?

If I was going to fund something, I would want to know my money is going to
the product and not merchandise.

I don't think a YC pitch would go well if they said "And with the first $10k
we're going to send out t-shirts to the first 1000 subscribers on the mailing
list."

------
lsiebert
If it's written in Javascript based on code mirrorand the only thing closed
source are a few plugins not related to the actual language plugins, then it
should be fairly easy to roll a package with chromium or Firefox built around
it. I expect a few show HN posts. I also hope for hosted solutions, and
licensing for students. This seems like an excellent way to learn a language.

I think we will see done aspects turned into plugins and add ons for existing
IDEs but that is not the same as building this intentionally from the ground
up. If you can have function reference lookup, for example, and if it's built
in Javascript, you can probably build in other forms of reference already on
the Web. Pervasive passive information that you would normally have to search
for.

------
hkuo
Just backed and looking forward to trying this out!

I just have one question/suggestion just in case it makes sense. My main
hesitation with using a browser-based IDE is that with native apps, I can use
standard quick-keys to navigate documents very quickly using just the
keyboard, such as flipping between documents, jumping my cursor to the
beginning or end of a line/document and shift-arrowing/tabbing to make a
selection. These are very basic and simple things, but without them, I would
have to painfully use my trackpad/mouse to make selections, navigate the
cursor around, or switch between documents. Just wondering if you're
considering this type of functionality that will let me perform quick and
simple actions through keyboard commands.

~~~
ibdknox
I'm a huge vim guy, and killed me to use the mouse as much as I did in the
video. The real thing will be shortcuttable to your heart's content :) And all
the standard things you would expect to work (like the ones you describe) will
definitely be there before the end.

------
nyrb
Was going to pledge the project, but saw "it is browser-based, it will
packaged in a webview of some kind so that it feels like a normal app".
Nothing wrong with browser-based editor, but I am comfortable with native app.
That's my personal preference.

------
shortlived
If closure is one of the first languages, how easy would it be to support
java?

~~~
mey
I am looking forward to Java support as well. I will be backing this project
even if it isn't included, but the value in my workflow would be tackling
Java.

------
duaneb
$50 is way too much, especially since I don't use javascript or clojure and I
don't see myself switching... ever. If there was C support or even python,
then it would much much less of a risk for my money.

~~~
ibdknox
Python will come in at $300k, but one thing to keep in mind is that it is a
highly extensible and completely open platform. There's no reason we have to
be the ones to add support for all languages.

------
mike
Just in case it's useful to anyone else, an HD version of the video (where the
code is legible) is available on vimeo here: <http://vimeo.com/40281991>

------
DanBC
T-shirt printing, packing, and delivery appears to be an unfilled niche.

------
james33
I was really anticipating this Kickstarter campaign to start, but the pledge
levels are a real downer. I don't mind paying $50 to get the licensee, but I
should get beta access for that. This project looks really cool, but
essentially preordering something over a year in advance (and lets face it,
these timelines never actually get met) for the same price or more than you
would pay when it is actually released without even getting beta access is
somewhat insulting. What incentive do I have to pledge right now?

------
shortlived
Where can I read more about the implementation details. I'm particularly
interested in how well it will work on an "enterprise" app, e.g. 500K loc with
some ugly dependencies.

------
lsc
Just a thought; when I read the title and started reading the description, I
thought you were actually selling a giant drafting-table sized LCD.

If you wanted to integrate the IDE well with one particular piece of really
nice kit, and then tell people that if they donate more than $BIGNUM, they get
a nice workstation, all setup and integrated.

(just a silly idea. That's probably more of a distraction than you want. But
it could be showy.)

------
JoshMock
Not trying to add one more "VIM IS BETTER" comment like happens on every
thread about editors, but I have an actual, for-real question: who wants to
help make a Vim workalike version of this? Because I would donate to that (in
time, meager Vimscript skills, money) in a heartbeat.

~~~
oscully
I'd be very interested in pursuing this. I have some of this functionality
already via numerous vim plugins, but not all of it. If I get a free moment in
the next couple weeks I'll start writing something up about what already
exists and what is missing.

Want to mention I think Light Table looks fantastic, but now that I have
internalized vim's key bindings I am very hesitant to switch. That said, I
still pledged on kickstarter.

------
methodin
Anyone have insight into how the tool that shows variables as it passed
through functions would work in an extensible "port over the language of your
choice" way? Is this reliant on stack tracing/debug tools or more rudimentary
methods?

------
ameen
Thanks for making the change. I just pledged $15 for a license. I'll make good
on my promise and spread the word around my networks, and hope others who
pledged the least for a license payback in similar ways too.

All the best Chris.

------
sellingly
Very cool, but I had to ask the question: Is this similar to / also based
around the Iguana translator? Thread here:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3856159>

------
angelixd
If the guy is so excited about this concept, has he tried prototyping in as an
(emacs/vim/eclipse/etc.) plugin? And if not, why? It seems that at least a few
of those features could be shown off before he goes asking for $200K.

~~~
jurre
Yes, he has a working prototype, check the video.

------
Blunt
I'd pledge the full $200K if they would take on C++ immediately. I am so sick
and tired of IDEs that suck at delivering solid C++ coding environment. The
best tool I've found for the job, to date, is Source Insight.

------
politician
I've thrown some of mine into the pot. As a Clojure apprentice, I'm eager to
see the beta. However, I honestly doubt that some of the desired languages are
even possible - C, really? Even JS seems dubious.

~~~
tubbo
the javascript console in most browsers and JSLint already do this to some
degree, Light Table just has to automate it. same goes for Ruby (IRB and ruby
-S)

------
eyko
I was hoping for an open source project rather than a $200,000 product, but
that's just me… Besides, Javascript being the main supported language is a put
off to be honest. But there goes my $1.

------
iamtoby2003
mmm....if i contribute 10 bucks, i would expect at least a copy of the
software. Plus, the UI is not too exciting and their expecation for investment
might be abit high IMO

------
ulugbek
one of those times when continually clicking "refresh" is fun.

~~~
oskarth
Woaha, that's a see-to-believe it. From $800 to $2 000+ in the time it took me
to skim a couple of HN comments.

~~~
ulugbek
I am super excited, I have been doing backend development with rails and been
kind of intimidated moving into doing more front-end stuff. I think LT is the
answer.

------
moondev
So will this be a native app or will it need to be run inside the browser? I'm
guessing the prototype was a web app but the final product will be native?

~~~
guelo
He has said it will run on top of the browser.

~~~
moondev
"In order to download the distributions, you'll need a license." Dosen't sound
like a web app to me.

~~~
guelo
I understood it as a piece of software that runs in a browser, not necessarily
a webapp. Could be local code that runs in your average browser, could be a
stripped down browser that only runs this app, or it could be a native app
that includes a webview as it's main interface.

~~~
moondev
So I guess we don't quite know yet. Will be interesting to see how he
implements it! I just can't see myself using something browser-based as an ide
but I suppose if it runs in an embedded "webview" that could be best of both
worlds.

~~~
dagw
The FAQ on the kickstarter page says: "While it is browser-based, it will
packaged in a webview of some kind so that it feels like a normal app."

~~~
AshMokhberi
I really hope they decide to move away from a browser based solution. I have
personally toyed with the idea of making a web based IDE for front-end
development, and had came across so many issues in my "experiments" that I
decided it wasn't worth it.

Lets talk about editors..

CodeMirror/Ace as an editor.

While both Code Mirror and Ace ( A spin off from Mozilla's Bespin editor )
Have done a very good job, as Marijn Haverbeke ( Code Mirror author ) puts it,
of "In-browser code editing made bearable". Neither are smooth / fluid /
responsive enough for every/all day coding. If you read

<http://codemirror.net/doc/internals.html>

You will get a good sense of why the browser is a very harsh environment for a
code editor to adapt to.

Alternatively you can have a play with any one of the tools, that use Code
Mirror and Ace.

Try to use them for an extended period of time and you will see what I mean.

    
    
        http://jsbin.com ( Code Mirror )
        http://c9.io ( Ace Editor )
    

I love the concept, and I'm going to be making a donation either way. I just
hope that they move away from the idea of a browser based editor. Before
investing a huge amount of time and energy into it, and end up with an
inferior product, largely attributed to the platform it's running on.

As a front-end developer, I'm all for making as much as I can browser based /
cross platform, and pushing the limits of the browser. But from personal
experience the browser isn't the place to be writing the code to do it.

~~~
jmitcheson
IMO it's a shame they stopped development on Bespin. It felt so smooth and
fluid to code on because it used canvas. You totally forgot you were coding in
a browser. Ace is great but it just doesn't feel the same eh.

------
swah
For a change, I wish this wasn't web-based, but based on Chromium and really
fast.

(And with a great plugin system).

~~~
ibdknox
It is all of those things :)

------
xsace
May 2013? I can't wait for so long.

------
tsiki
Will it have any support for popular JS modularisation libraries like
require.js?

------
wxl
$200k seems like an awful lot to me. I don't see why you need a massive team
to make an IDE. It's not like you're making a game, where you need artists,
programmers, composers, etc. All this is is programming.

------
angeladur
so the software is opensource, but they are providing official binaries for a
Fee. Hmm..very similar to what XChat did a while ago

------
ScotterC
With the new early beta access for $50, I'm in.

------
Drbble
I don't get it. This proposal sounds like Eclipse that exists today plus a
couple of small new plugin for the more aspirational bits.

------
aiscott
The current pricing structure is discouraging backers, in my opinion. You tell
us that when it's released it will most likely be pay-what-you-want, but if we
pay early and support the project we are pushed into $50. I can guarantee you
that if you do pay-what-you-want, your average isn't going to be $50.

I don't know what percentage of backers are the kind that do it merely to
"support" a project, but I would guess it's not more than 10-15% of all
backers for a given project.

The rest want some value for their money beyond feeling good about backing.
You state you chose $50 for a license because that is what you think it is
worth. I think you'll find out that what you think people will pay you for
something and what they are willing to pay differs by a factor of 2-3.

So most of the people that want what you are going to make, even a little,
probably don't want to spend more than $20 or $25. The difference between that
and $50 is made up from goodwill, but that's really asking a lot of people.

I would recommend making some more tiers between $5 and $50, where everything
above $20 gets a license. This way you capture the people that just want the
product, and give others the ability to show their goodwill as well.

This isn't the kind of project that really needs swag. Nobody really wants a
t-shirt. If you do something like promise to list backers (and their
associated tiers) in the "credits" of the app, that would probably be great
for most people.

edit: typos, and wording

~~~
7rurl
Agreed. $50 for a license it too high. Lowering it to $15 for a license would
put it in impulse buy territory for most people, and you'd likely get a _lot_
more backers and receive more money. Personally, I don't know you at all, so I
have no reason to trust that you will produce something good, and so I don't
want to gamble $50 on it. But, I would gamble $15 on it.

The other software kickstarters I've backed have included a copy of the
product for the lowest tier (usually $15), and then added swag like t-shirts
at the higher tiers.

Something like this:

$15: Light Table license

$30: Light Table license and included in the list of contributors

$50: Light Table license, included in list of contributors, and early access
to beta

$100: Light Table license, included in list of contributors, early access to
betas, and t-shirt

Lowering the early access will get you more beta testers, and raising the
t-shirt higher will make you have to ship less t-shirts.

~~~
ibdknox
I couldn't change them even if I wanted to now that money is involved. But I
think looking at this as buying something is also inaccurate. Ultimately
kickstarter is a way of helping things turn into a reality - not a place to
shop. It's basically a form of donation, that just happens to have some reward
associated to it.

~~~
SatvikBeri
I love how the top-voted comments on HN are always "the price is too high!"
And yet, Light Table has already raised $22k in 4 hours-not a bad start.

~~~
fuzzythinker
I actually think the amount would be much higher had the $50 included beta.

~~~
SatvikBeri
What data are you basing this off of? Have you ever tried selling products at
significantly different prices and measuring revenue/profit? I have-as one
example, I've sold the same PDFs at $.99, $9.99, and $49.99. The $.99 and
$9.99 price points got about the same revenue, with $9.99 getting much higher
profit due to transaction costs. But $49.99 got much, much more revenue and
profit than either of the lower-priced options. And I've seen this over and
over again, with a variety of products.

~~~
fuzzythinker
What you said is confirmation of my guessing. I'm saying if $50 includes beta
(currently only $100 [EDIT: just saw $50 for beta added, thanks for listening
to HNers ibdnox! Oh, wait, that access is much later than the $100 price
point..]), then the amount he may be getting may be higher than the current
amount.

FYI, no data to base off, just guessing, hence the words "think", "would" in
my post you're replying to.

------
lwat
The main thing holding me back is the supported languages. I don't use Clojure
and I'm not a big enough Javascript fan. Suggestion: Add more languages if you
reach enough backing

$200k: JS and Clojure

$250k: JS, Clojure and C

$300k: JS, Clojure, C and ...

~~~
shortlived
C would be INCREDIBLE

~~~
Arelius
C development in this manner isn't a particularly trivial matter. C header
compilation and decleration alone complicates this.

~~~
wladimir
libclang could help a lot here, as it gives access to the internals of a C/C++
compiler all the way from tokenizing to code generation. It also has built-in
support for all kinds of IDE features such as code completion and fixit hints.

