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0 pointsseanmcdirmid11y ago0 comments

> How can WinRT be a derivative of WPF if it's written in C++? What WPF code-base did they derive from?

They derived WPFs design and API language, along with XAML. Its not like MILCORE was written in C# either.

> So what does show a good measure of overall developers that shows the slow death of languages/devs without IDE's

It shows nothing. IDEs haven't really been a thing (they weren't that good until then) since the late 90s or even mid 00s. It is taking awhile, but its happening. We will see more language designs that don't bother with IDE independence for better features. Couple that in with the Bret Victor candy, and there is only one way to get there.

> There's also lots of value in small, wrist-friendly languages that don't need an IDE and have a good story for text-editors / command-line. You may want to check out what the dev story is for Clojure / Go / Node which support live-reloading / auto-running of modified tests and fast dev iteration times without IDE's.

I know all about those systems, and they aren't very inspiring. We can do much better than that if we don't limit ourselves to languages just being syntax/semantics/and a compiler.

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mythz11y ago

> They derived WPFs design and API language, along with XAML. Its not like MILCORE was written in C# either.

Got it, so it's derivative in the same way Chrome is a derivative of IE because HTML/CSS. Only a little less so due to different namespaces, missing controls, completely different runtime and incompatible desktop modes - maximizing developer happiness since 2011.

> It shows nothing. IDEs haven't really been a thing...

Not nothing, apparently it's enough to declare text-editor devs an extinct species and decree the new generation of devs will skip text editors entirely and only consider IDE-coupled languages.

> Couple that in with the Bret Victor candy, and there is only one way to get there.

Bret Victor showcases the benefits of previewing changes in real-time like the kind you can see with Clojure in LightTable or Swift's playground. Late-bound languages are more suitable for effecting real-time changes than static pre-compiled IDE-coupled languages, the kind that was being done in Smalltalk decades ago, even VB6 had better live-editing support than C#/VS.NET does now with Edit/Continue.

seanmcdirmidOP11y ago

> Got it, so it's derivative in the same way Chrome is a derivative of IE because HTML/CSS. Only a little less so due to different namespaces, missing controls, completely different runtime and incompatible desktop modes - maximizing developer happiness since 2011.

WinRT really is WPF cleaned up a bit and done with a different language (though it supports .NET bindings easily), and ya, missing a bunch of features that even I sorely miss (though to be share, pixel shaders are kind of dangerous!). Same people, same API architecture, same etc...I still prefer WPF, but because I'm writing dev environments and not apps.

> Not nothing, apparently it's enough to declare text-editor devs an extinct species and decree the new generation of devs will skip text editors entirely and only consider IDE-coupled languages.

IDEs weren't a thing until recently (the last 15 or so years). Text-editor devs aren't extinct, just shrinking in numbers. Extinction doesn't occur for another 20 or so years. Anyways, you need IDE believers to make good IDEs, you can tell when an IDE has been pushed out by non-believers (it sucks, because they don't get it).

> Bret Victor showcases the benefits of previewing changes in real-time like the kind you can see with Clojure in LightTable or Swift's playground. Late-bound languages are more suitable for effecting real-time changes than static pre-compiled IDE-coupled languages, the kind that was being done in Smalltalk decades ago, even VB6 had better live-editing support than C#/VS.NET does now with Edit/Continue.

Why must an IDE-coupled language "static" or "pre-compiled"? I agree C# isn't very live nor would I try to make it be live, but the CLR provides a lot of the tools needed to get there (quick real-time tree compilation). I'm working on this right now...(see [1] again if you haven't, and that's from last year).

Your standards of live editing are kind of low, but that's an argument for some other time.

[1] http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/people/smcdirm/liveprogr...

dragonwriter11y ago

> IDEs weren't a thing until recently (the last 15 or so years).

IDEs originated in the 1970s, and became popular in the 1980s.

> Text-editor devs aren't extinct, just shrinking in numbers.

The line between "text editor" and "IDE" is so blurry now that there's probably not a clear line between text editor devs and IDE devs. (And there's plenty of multilanguage devs whose preference on the "editor-IDE" axis probably varies by language -- certainly the level of tooling sophistication I want with Ruby is different than I want with C# or Java.)

And more and more modern languages have both "doesn't need an IDE as much as older static languages" and "can more easily support IDE tooling than older dynamic languages" as features, so there's plenty of fuel for both sides. I don't think the preference for lighter tooling is dying out.

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