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Discussion on: What great software invention or idea never gained adoption?

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almenon profile image
Almenon • Edited

Lighttable. Real-time coding and data visualization. Programming without being able to see your variable contents is kinda like programming blind in my opinion.

Unfortunately it was way ahead of its time. I made AREPL (similar concept) but isn't gaining users either. I still think the overall idea is great - AREPL has a 5-star rating, after all - but fully realizing the dream while smoothly integrating it into a existing editor is extremely difficult.

I should note that jupyter notebook and linqpad, although not live programming, are successful at rapid data visualization. So that part has been proven achievable at least.

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sergix profile image
Peyton McGinnis

Yesss, Lighttable was awesome. Way too bad it lagged behind in support.

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leastbad profile image
leastbad

I backed LightTable on Kickstarter!

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jopie64 profile image
Johan

Looking at it, it feels a bit like quokka...
quokkajs.com/docs/index.html

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almenon profile image
Almenon

Yep! It's similar. I use quokka sometimes and I like it. I'd like to try out wallaby too but it's kinda expensive (120$). Maybe I should give it a trial 🤔