
3 days left to pledge for Python in Light Table - trueduke
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ibdknox/light-table
======
bobsy
The funding model for this project is silly.

So for $50 you get a license for this product. What does it cost to generate a
license key or send someone an executable? Near zero? They keep like $49.98 at
this tier.

For $30 you get a t-shirt. Cost to the developer? I don't know. Lets say the
t-shirt costs $10. Plus the design time. Plus the prep, making sure people get
the right sizes and postage time * (105 + 208). Probably making a loss at this
tier.

You then have the licenses. $200 gets you 2 licenses. Wha? $500 gets you 4!?
of course the benefit of the $500 is being admitted into the buggy alpha
testing phase. Great..

I think they probably would have raised 300k with better tiers.

I also wonder about this Python promise. If I was a Python developer and it
failed to hit 300k I might consider withholding my donation. I mean why not? I
want Python support. I donate to that end. The project doesn't make it to
Python support. I should remove my donation as I am not getting the product I
donated to.

This kind of fund raising seems to fly in the face of what Kickstarter is
about.

~~~
gaius
As Joel Spolsky points out, you might value a t-shirt at $10 because it costs
$10 at The Gap. But it actually costs closer to $1. Giving away free t-shirts
is basically a no-brainer in promotional terms.

~~~
d3ad1ysp0rk
Where are you getting custom tshirts made for $1? Lets also not forget about
shipping and handling (time is money).

~~~
gaius
The numbers aren't exact (I doubt Gap sells a t-shirt for less than $30 these
days) but the point is: promotional merchandise works because it's actually
worth a lot less than you think it is.

One guy I know in catering likes to bet that someone can't eat £1 worth of
food. He's paying 2p for an egg and 1p for a rasher of bacon at wholesale
rates...

------
brianhc
Let's be real. If Python will be supported at $300K, then Python will be
supported at $273K.

~~~
gaius
Oh sure, but the $300k gets it supported out of the gate, not "whenever we get
round to it".

I am a Python user who pledged with that in mind. Never got into Clojure (and
OCaml or Haskell support I suspect isn't high on the priority list!).

------
est
Am I the only one who think Light Table won't work for Python?

I mean, look at all those getattr() setattr() stuff. LightTable doesn't stand
a chance. Even dealing with some very primitive Django models.

~~~
tonyarkles
I haven't used PyCharm a whole lot, but a friend of mine raves about it
constantly. They've apparently added heuristics for Django (and other
frameworks), so that it can make assumptions about the layout and behaviour of
the code. See a render() call? You can click on the path and have it open the
template correctly, even though that normally has to go through the
TEMPLATE_LOADERS machinery.

You can get a long way by being slightly smart about things, instead of just
relying on a naive static analysis. (I mean "naive" in the sense of ... well,
not in the insulting sense :P)

~~~
gaius
We're all computer scientists here, but you're right, using terms like "naive"
and "trivial" is often open to misunderstanding.

------
llambda
Interesting: considering the tone of the YC announcement post I had assumed
that funding via Kickstarter was put on the back burner. In particular I'm
surprised that support for a given language would hinge on a funding goal
therein! So a number of questions come to mind: Wasn't Chris offering to
return Kickstarter donations? What will happen if some people take him up on
that offer after the funding period has closed? Perhaps Python support should
be based off a different metric now that Chris is guaranteed funding via YC?

~~~
SatvikBeri
If I recall correctly, when Light Table was accepted into YC, Chris sent out
an e-mail saying that Light Table was now guaranteed to happen and that if the
only reason you donated was to make sure the project went through, you can
feel free to retract the pledge (no money is withdrawn until the actual end
date).

He also mentioned that with YC backing Python support was likely to happen
sooner or later, but the $300k mark still puts Python in the "sooner" bucket.

------
antimora
By reading the Kickstarters comments I sense that the most of money came from
Python supporters. It would really suck if it falls short by 10K.

------
ruggeri
I like a lot of Chris's projects, and clearly the community loves this one,
but I don't yet understand whether this is open-source? I'm not sure that the
language in the FAQ really means anything; at worst, it sounds deceptive.

I'm fundamentally very skeptical of an editor which I don't know that I'll be
able to look inside of, hack on, extend, or fix. Given how the editor is at
the center of most everything I do on a computer, all those pay-software fears
are magnified for me.

Obviously 50,000,000 TextMate fans can't be wrong about paying for an editor,
either, but this is a project I don't know that I can support.

------
checker659
Given all the demand for python support in Light table, I wouldn't be
surprised if some else is already working on it.

~~~
bergie
At least the latest demos posted include some Python examples, like:
[http://www.chris-granger.com/images/lightable/flask-
routes.p...](http://www.chris-granger.com/images/lightable/flask-routes.png)

------
adhipg
Are their goals still the same considering that they have been accepted into
YC?

That is, are they still looking for 300k in Kickstarter funds before
supporting Python etc?

~~~
jaredsohn
On a previous post made after getting into YC
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3992581>) they said:

>We're sticking with our goal on Kickstarter - if we hit 300k we'll definitely
do it. There's a decent chance we will either way though.

------
davedx
I really don't like the way the funding model has gone for this project. It
started simply enough, but now I really have to keep up on news to figure out
what the state of play is. What next, $400k for Ruby support?

~~~
Drbble
What smells bad to me is the ever increasing hype and pricetag around the thus
vaporware product that is really just a bag of features that should be added
to a strong and stable IDE like Eclipse with PyDev/JDT/etc. People are getting
so excited by the iPhoto-pretty screenshots, and forgetting the dozens of
other features they benefit from in an IDE.

------
MisterBastahrd
If you don't support languages that people actually use, you're going to run
out of money as they won't give a shit about your little toy IDE.

What's going to be the $400K mark?

Brainfuck?

------
bootload
_"... While I can put together a prototype on my own, I certainly can't build
an entire IDE in any reasonable amount of time by myself. The more money we
get, the larger the team I can put together to turn this thing into a reality.
..."_

The lack of money didn't stop the Linux kernel or GNU.

~~~
roel_v
Are you seriously saying that Linux would be where it is now, or even be a
usable OS at all, if Linus hadn't been paid to work on it for the last 15+
years, and if there had been no money from RedHat, IBM, Google and all the
other companies that have contributed over the years? Please. If there hadn't,
it would be like HURD - properly flat-lined for all practical intents and
purposes.

