Light table ide javascript code#
Light table ide javascript windows#

Light table ide javascript code#

We shouldn’t have to constantly navigate back and forth to see how the various bits of our code work with one another.įinally, all of this culminates in the ability to see not just how things I type into a scratch editor evaluate, but how values flow through our entire codebase. In light mode, Light Table let’s you see what functions are used inside of the one you’re currently working on, not just by highlighting ones in your code, but by also showing you their code to the side. There’s no reason our tools can’t help us understand how things are organized in our programs. We saw an example of this with Code Bubbles, but it doesn’t take it far enough - why can’t we embed a running game on our work surface? Then we can interrogate it, ask it questions and have our environment answer them for us. We shouldn’t need to limit ourselves to a world where the smallest moveable unit is a file - our code has much more complex interactions that we can better see when we can organize things conceptually. A drafting table is a much better abstraction for us. Other engineers have large tables where they can scatter drawings, tools, and other information around.

Light table ide javascript windows#

Towards the end of my time on the Visual Studio team, I came to the conclusion that windows aren’t a good abstraction for what we do. There’s no faster way to catch bugs than to watch your program work. This level of real-time evaluation and visualization basically creates a real-time debugger, allowing you to quickly try various inputs and watch it flow through your code. This lets you see how values flow through arbitrarily complex groups of functions. Light Table takes this idea as far as it can and doesn’t just show you variables to the side, but actually shows you how the code is filled in. For example here I type the code (+ 3 4) and we immediately see that it evaluates to 7 - no ctrl-enter or anything else. But we can do better - we can do it in place and instantaneously. The lispers among us are used to using the REPL to have an environment where we can try things out. In Inventing on Principle, Bret showed us that we could live-edit games and write binary search in an editor that is constantly evaluating and showing you what’s going on. No need to look at some other generated documentation. This is especially handy for finding functions you may not even know exist and seeing their docs right there. Don’t remember what was in the re namespace? It’s one ctrl-f away. We work with new code all the time and it’s easy to forget what that function that adds a link on to a page is - we should be able to search all our documentation in place to quickly see what it is.

This makes sure you never have to worry about forgetting things like argument order ever again. Want to know what partial does? Just put your cursor on top of it. Normally to do so you’d have to navigate to the definition of the function, but lightable ghosts this information in to the side. When you’re looking at new code it’s extremely valuable to be able to quickly see documentation left behind by the author. Let’s take a look at how these things manifest themselves in Light Table.

We can shine some light on related bits of code.

Trying is encouraged - changes produce instantaneous results.

Editors can be anywhere and show you anything - not just text.

Files are not the best representation of code, just a convenient serialization.

You should never have to look for documentation.

Light table is based on a few guiding principles: We need to be able to move things around, keep clutter down, and bring information to the foreground in the places we need it most. Visual Studio provides various kinds of project templates that help you get started coding quickly.Light Table is based on a very simple idea: we need a real work surface to code on, not just an editor and a project explorer. On the start window, select Create a new project, and then in the search box type in javascript or typescript to filter the list of project types to those that contain 'javascript' or 'typescript' in their name or language type. To continue exploring Visual Studio's features, let's create a new project. You can also press Esc to close the start window and open the IDE. You might choose this option to join a Live Share session or attach to a process for debugging. The Continue without code option simply opens the Visual Studio development environment without any specific project or code loaded. Otherwise, you can create a new project or clone a project from a source provider such as GitHub or Azure DevOps. For more information, see Develop code in Visual Studio without projects or solutions. If you work with non-MSBuild based codebases, use the Open a local folder option to open your code in Visual Studio. If this is the first time you're using Visual Studio, your recent projects list will be empty.