Submitted by Brown University has developed an IDE for Java called Code Bubbles that takes a pretty radical departure from current IDEs. While most IDEs, such as Eclipse are file-based, Code Bubbles is based on fragments. The system appears to support reading and editing code with fragments, multi-tasking, annotating and sharing, and debugging with bubbles. There’s a website with video too.
I am so old school I might have trouble with it, but I like what I saw in the video.
Isn’t Smalltalk also rather old(ish)? Without looking at the videos this sounds somehow like Smalltalk (Squeek).
Old does not mean bad.
It also has some more flexible UI abilities/widgets to it than smalltalk does/did. At least from what I remember in my brief stint of trying it [Smalltalk] out.
Honestly, I don’t know how usable it would be, but I wouldn’t mind trying it out.
…resource hungry… tying together all the code in such a way that it is able to quickly find/reference related code and stuff like that.
All major Java IDEs can do that, actually. This is just a different, very cool, form of presentation.
Yeah I guess you are right. But this seems to be almost instantaneous … as if it were preloaded. Also the task bar is interesting.
Why does Robert Zeleznik sound familiar to me?
Only you would know the answer to that.
LOL! Thanks.
Yeah, sorry. Bad joke *blush*
Because it looks similar to Robert Szeleney? Just kidding 😛
Actually, since I am growing more senile with each passing moment, I bet that is exactly right!
Thinking of SF author, Roger Zelazny?
Oh yes, that could be it too! I don’t know.
You are likely thinking of Robert Zemeckis
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000709/
known from movies like Back to the Future and the Frighteners but not really for any of his other movies.
No, actually I don’t know that one!
Well, I saw the movie, but I don’t know anyone but fox in that.
Most decent IDEs do that (regardless of language).
This just takes the idea one step further and manages the files as well.
Personally I want to dislike this as thus far I’ve been very disappointed everytime I hear the phrase “new IDE design”, however I’m actually quite impressed from the video. I’ll be keeping an eye on this project for sure.
Does it actually manage the files? There could easily be normal .java files behind all this, with the bubbles just being one way of representing things.
It’s almost certainly just .java files, but the fact is you’re not creating the files and managing the contents yourself so the software must be doing it for you.
At least that was the logic I applied – I guess it’s a matter of interpretation.
This looks very neat, reminds me of Squeak/Smalltalk – maybe it’s just the bubbles
. Applied for the beta. Thanks a lot for sharing.
Me too! I could actually get into something like that … assuming project set up is somewhat simple – if there is such a concept.
I like it. If it could be applied to other languages, I’d use it. I’m guessing it is extremely language specific at the moment though.
Would be nice to link this up with GUI layout tools.
I sort of like using graphical layout tools for user interfaces. Then I end up having to edit the generated code, or in the case of Glade match up the components and signals with their callback functions. I hate that part, all the switching back and forth.
Something like this would be so much nicer.
Also the video focused on an existing codebase, and not on writing new objects from scratch. This is probably where the clear and immediate benefits are.
If I used this, I would need to ask procurement for two 30″ monitors too.
Yeah. I don’t think I’d like using bubbles for the main programming of a project, but it looks like it could be extremely useful for digging into a codebase, and debugging sessions. No more tabbing between a zillion files, get just the information you need and where you need it.
If they added some UML editing possibilities I think it would be quite natural to go from model to a full application. You just click on an operation in e.g an UML class diagram to get a new bubble where you write the code.
Indeed innovative, and possibly has the potential to be interestingly productive. Obviously a lot of work went into this project, and it looks really good. Well done
Wishful thoughts:
1. Allow resize of scrollable bubbles (object properties, docs, etc).
2. Allow other languages via plugins (syntax, code analysis, compiler/debugger, docs etc), and hopefully also dynamically typed languages (such as Javascript/PHP/etc – probably with reduced functionality which depends on static typing).
One potential issue that might arise when people actually start to use it, is managing the huge amount of contexts/layouts/states that can be stored using this system.
While the system does provide a solution, and in a way, is the solution for context-based programming sessions, it still seems to me that it has the potential to drown the programmer with so many contexts that it actually reduces productivity. But then again, it has to be tried for a while before such statements can be expressed.
Overall, extremely interesting. Looking forward to try it out with languages I use more.
Again, Well done