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Comment by dibbeke | Hacker News Reader

His argument is on how most concepts in light table are not novel. Branding light table as novel or groundbreaking is therefor incorrect and his post is called for.

You seem to attack his argument on his background as a Java developer and not on parts of his argument. As far as I know, this is called an ad hominem attack and in my opinion does not belong on Hacker News.

If you can find good counter arguments on his arguments:

- Light Table is not novel or groundbreaking since Eclipse has had these kind of features for at least a decade (and several Smalltalk IDE's have had them for several decades), - Light Table's examples are contrived because real world examples do not behave in this way,

we'd be having a real discussion.

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first: I replied to zacharyvoase's comment and therefore my comment was related to his, don't take it in isolation.

There are plenty of other comments here that explain why pdeva1 is coming from the wrong angle therefore I'm not going to repeat them.

Chris never mentioned novel or groundbreaking, others have so go and ask them but please before you do that look up the difference between invention and innovation and also remember that novel really means fresh or refreshing (although it's used most of the time to indicate new)

As far as I can see, you're arguing:

"Since he's a Java developer, he delivers critique on LightTable".

thereby pointing out that any other kind of developer would probably not have made such critique, thereby relating the validity of his critique with him being a Java developer/Eclipse user, thereby being an ad hominem attack.

On your last argument I would like to add that on Hacker News it is clearly branded as the next big thing since sliced bread.

Of course languages such a Clojure, Scala and Haskell need more sophisticated IDE's than vim + plugins. Especially for larger projects. And as such I think the features in the POC are a good idea. Still, they are nothing new and I'd expect them in any modern IDE. I could add some idea's of my own (stealing from an IDE I use daily):

- annotate the source with a git history - highlighting based on AST instead of regex's - outlines

Anyways, we agree that Light Table is not novel, nor groundbreaking and it's not an invention. Exactly the point Prashant Deva was trying to make. Nothing to see here, move along.

"Since he's a Java developer, he delivers critique on LightTable".

No, it's more that he's writing as if he's unaware how parochially Java-centric his viewpoint is. Many of his points aren't very useful for other languages.

Ah, finally, here we have the gist of the argument: "Many of his points aren't very useful for other languages." The rest is all noise and no signal.

Well, although that point has been answered on other parts of the forum, it seems the auto-eval function is reserved for immutables only and non-recursive languages. So it seems this restriction reduces to number of applicable language to around zero. Thus, at least one of his points applies to all other languages. Do you want to hear argumentation for the other points?

So it seems this restriction reduces to number of applicable language to around zero. Thus, at least one of his points applies to all other languages. Do you want to hear argumentation for the other points?

It seems we've touched a nerve, which is a bit embarrassing. Clearly, the kinds of things the Light-Table gentleman is talking about are applicable to more than zero languages. I know because I've spent 1.5 decades coding in one. That you'd make such an argument indicates you aren't in command of all the facts, or you're willing to take or build up strawman interpretations.

(One famous gentleman once said, "If you ever get someone upset, you've struck gold!")

That said, "auto-eval," if this means automatic re-evaluation of everything is slick demo stuff. But nimbly being able to edit and save any source code, then being able to fearlessly rewind the stack to an appropriate point and go on as if the change was always there would be appropriate even for very involved and long running code, and is quite real.

Similarly, I know for a fact that everything else in the Light Table video has approximations in real environments.

How would you render trees or (big) matrices? Recursive functions? Infinite lists?

I'm upset because the method of discussion here seems to revolve around tainting the credulity of the author ("That you'd make such an argument indicates you aren't in command of all the facts"); by claiming a conflict of interest while this is not applicable (the OP does not claim authority!); or by appeals to authority ("because I've spent 1.5 decades coding in one").

By the way, I feel that those who have to play the "If you ever get someone upset, you've struck gold!"-card, should listen to some more gentlemen talk about syllogisms.

How would you render trees or (big) matrices? Recursive functions? Infinite lists?

You don't. I think the Light Table author is naive here. Instead, you let the programmer rewind the stack at will.

I'm upset because the method of discussion here seems to revolve around tainting the credulity of the author ("That you'd make such an argument indicates you aren't in command of all the facts")

The facts in question have to do with things I've seen implemented. Your argument is an indication you aren't aware of the same. That's not tainting your credulity. I'm questioning if you have all the facts.

By the way, I feel that those who have to play the "If you ever get someone upset, you've struck gold!"-card, should listen to some more gentlemen talk about syllogisms.

You are the one who is upset. You are also incorrect about what you purport to be upset about. (My intentions in pointing out certain facts and their implications.) Please process this data.

Ad hominem aren't always a logical fallacies, and, in this case, might not bet at all. Ad Personam are.

You should read Eristic Dialectics: The Art Of Being Right by Arthur Schopenhauer.

Saying he is biased because he is a java-only programmer isn't clearly a wrong statement, and it doesn't mean he's totally wrong either.

Just saying, but that's not the point of the article.

Thanks for the reference, I'll surely read it. [Pause] I've just read the first couple of chapters and it is most surely an enjoyable read. It brings the current discussion into a completely different light. Thanks again.

I'd say that instant eval in the 'inventing on principle' fashion does make it novel and groundbreaking. Everything in it don't have to be. The core premise, a general purpose IDE based around those ideas is.

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