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[Kunal]

http://www.cs.brown.edu/people/acb/codebubbles_site.htm

Basically a rethink of what an IDE user interface should be like. Would love to give this a whirl if it supported as3.

[Mikademus]

Seems like one of those things that can be both really nifty, but also a world of pain. How will I have any control over where source is located (or do we assume a Java one-class-per-file world view here)? How much meta-information will be required by the IDE? This might be a serious problem for portable code and projects.

There may be something like too many tools, something that may actually contributes to make one a worse programmer! Sort of like using wrist supports too much in the gym, which allows you to handle weight otherwise hurtful, but will ultimately not allow your tendons and ligaments to develop as they should.

Yeah, I likened programming to athletic activities. Good programmers take care of their bodies, too.

[Ivan]

Now listen to that video.

[lansing]

lol... seems like something that is required because Java is often so fragmented and hard to read 

[dspencer]

Looks cool, but they *really* need a better video...

[David Pittman]

I couldn't sit through the whole video, so I don't know if they showed any examples of writing code in there, but for simply reading and comprehending existing code, it's a great alternative to flipping between a bunch of different places in a bunch of different files, which usually ends up with me slowly building a mental map of the code very similar to the bubble structures they've created. Tools that work with the way my brain works? I like it.

[george]

It reminds me a lot of Squeak Smalltalk. I like the idea, but what I'd like better is a kind of squishable and stretchable outline, where you could drag the outline nodes around but they would still retain their outline structure if you wanted to look at the whole project like that.

[Sos]

Oh noes it's java

[Gagege]

Cool idea, and it doesn't have to be Java I think because it's built on top of Eclipse. Also, like some people already said, it probably makes some wacky things happen in the actual code files. Like things being in a weird order and such. Not a big deal if everyone uses this system, but if people using different IDE's work on the code it might be crazy.

[Alex May]

Needs a better VO man, ugh.

Like the idea though, nice and simple and useful, and the zooming is something that could be applied to all IDEs to increase productivity IMO.

[bateleur]

Makes great tech!porn.

Wouldn't want to actually use it, though.

[st33d]

I signed up for beta to simply try it out.

I fucking hate Eclipse. Made everything into a massive mess. I'm used to a sketch mentality where I can try out ideas quickly and then integrate them.

[Crimsontide]

Its interesting.  My 1st concern would be though the amount of clicking/bubbles required to get to whatever I'm looking.  The 2nd big issue is that ur intellisense/parsing solution would have to work 100% of the time, even for broken code; because thats what ur using to find references, functions, ect...  You can't populate a drop down menu with identifiers if you don't know what the identifiers are.

Its certainly interesting, but I don't see it being viable for something thats complex to parse like C++.  Hopefully I'm wrong.

[skyy]

I signed up for beta to simply try it out.

I fucking hate Eclipse. Made everything into a massive mess. I'm used to a sketch mentality where I can try out ideas quickly and then integrate them.

I agree with this, personally I think Eclipse can turn anything into steaming pile of shit. No matter who you are, no matter what you are working on. If you let eclipse spin it's webs for long enough, it'll turn your rough diamond into big steaming pile of ... yeah.

[jotapeh]

I like the idea, and I would like to use it for sure, if it were not Java-based. Not to get into any holy wars, just because I don't use Java and I don't think I have any reason to use it in the near future either.

[BlueSweatshirt]

I like where the design in this is going. If it could be ported efficiently and effectively to work with other languages(namely C/++/#) I'd be personally interested.

I think the idea of zooming out and viewing multiple code files at once is a simple thing IDEs really could use; for how I detest tabs. Ohhhh, how I detest them!(in IDEs)

[Klaim]

One think I know is that we're better at thinking in space than in abstract. We remember where are things better than we remember what things looks like.

So, this IDE is really interesting. I would like to try it once it's finally out. It could be a performance boost for everyone.

What I don't like about it is that it don't seem to be language-agnostic. If language parsing/definition is defined by some kind of plugin, then excellent, we can have it later for, say, C++ right?
If however the buble behaviour is dependant on the java language, then FAIL!

I would love to have that as special mode in Visual Studio.

[drChengele]

This is... interesting, to say the least.

I would love to have that as special mode in Visual Studio.

I'd like to reserve judgement until I see it in action (I mean in life, not on youtube), but even so, I think chances for that are slim. Too novel.

[slembcke]

Oh dear. I should really hold my tongue, but this is exactly the sort of thing that is wrong with the Java language.

IMO, there is only one reason that Java is a usable language, and that is Eclipse. I also really loathe Eclipse. It's overly complicated and most of that complexity is suited specifically to making the Java language a reasonable language to use. Maybe I'm just jaded and grumpy, but I'd much rather work in a language that allows me to make abstractions instead of relying on tools to auto-generate, manage, and navigate the mountain of code scattered across far too many files. Goodness forbid that you allow first class functions, operators, or immutable data types as they would scare away and confuse all the junior programmers!

I've personally never found IDEs to help my productivity all that much. Good languages, tools and APIs usually do on the other hand.

[st33d]

Flashdevelop helps my productivity loads.

I demonstrated the brilliance of its code completion the other day by mashing my face into the keyboard and pressing Enter before a co-worker. And lo did Flashdevelop summon legible code from my flippancy.