This could effectively be a programming sketchbook - which is not a new idea (see the Processing IDE), but this integrates within a device that's basically the digital equivalent of a notebook. This is such an amazing and beautiful concept.<p>Say hello to the future. We don't have <i>hoverboards</i>, but we have <i>codebooks</i> - where sketches come to interactive life within its pages!
yes yes, a thousand times yes. There is some serious misinformation in this thread though. Apple has allow interpreters on the phone for a while, and the remaining restriction is that you can't download code or bring code in through the app document directory. This app breaks neither of these restrictions. In fact, there have been other lua interpreters running on the ios for a while now, see: <a href="http://www.mobileappsystems.com/products/iluabox" rel="nofollow">http://www.mobileappsystems.com/products/iluabox</a><p>The difference with this app is that the ide is really a labor of love, and it is super fun to code in. Not that iLuaBox isn't, but all of the little features for tweaking colors and editing sprites are brilliant. The graphics and audio engine don't hurt either.<p>For those complaining that there isn't a companion engine that you can take the code out of codify and release actual games, you should take a look a corona. The api in codify is not so big that you wouldn't be able to clone anything that you made in it to another platform relatively easily. I do agree that there should be more lua based gl engines for iphone though. I am working on one, but as of yet it is totally for my own use, but only by virtue of the fact that it doesn't come with nice build scripts.<p>The other thing that some commenters miss is that you can use copy and paste in this app. That will open the gates to sharing code, it is as easy as: select all, copy, switch to safari, go to pastebin, send link to someone else. I suspect that some of the time the app spent in approval was them thinking about that.<p>-- edit for not being a jerk to iluabox
This app goes against the iOS Devloper Program License Terms.<p>They specifically state no code or scripts may be executed period unless (a) they bundled in the application's package or (b) use WebKit and WebKit's JavaScript<p>If Apple is relaxing their policies it would be good to know. Lots of others would like to write apps like this but were told they would be banned.<p>Maybe they are getting around it by running Lua in JavaScript in WebKit?
I thought Apple would never approve any type of simulator, virtual machine, or app creation platform for iOS itself, since it could be used to generate apps that might not conform with their guidelines. How did they get around this?
It's great to see tools like this start to emerge on iOS but the new 11" MBA is only slightly more trouble to lug around but is infinitely more useful as a development tool than I suspect a tablet will ever be.
Notably, this fits into YC's "Request for Startups #5: Development on Handlhelds":<p><a href="http://ycombinator.com/rfs5.html" rel="nofollow">http://ycombinator.com/rfs5.html</a>
I made a simple particle simulation in Codify in around 30 minutes:
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEqTvRd8qMM" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEqTvRd8qMM</a><p>That is, 30 minutes, plus few more minutes pouring over the examples learning LUA syntax (I've never worked in it before but it's basically Python but lazier and more forgiving)<p>At times it felt a bit frustrating, as some of the code, such as p[i].x = p[i].x + p[i].vx takes forever to write because of the brackets, which are 3 taps each. I think this can be improved upon in the future.<p>Many examples are provided which is very nice.
The graphics is done using opengl-like stack with pops and pushes of transformations.<p>Overall, the app is very impressive and I'd love to see these kinds of apps used in education. Kids could use it to learn programming, without having to suffer the overhead of file system etc., as on a real computer. Excellent stuff with bright future.
Chill !!!<p>This is for FUN! You're not likely to write the next Microsoft Office with Codify, but a lot of kids are going to have heaps of fun! Anyone remember Alan Kay's vision for SketchBook? This has to be the closest yet to that vision.
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Diehard VI/Emacs fans are still getting over their aversion to IDEs - now you're going to make them TOUCH! That'll make their heads explode!
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That looks pretty cool. Real programs tend to require an awful lot of input and tweaking though. I wonder what the development cycle is like? How fast do things compile on an iPad?
I've been using moai recently, which is a cross-platform Lua-based environment for developing (mostly) 2D style games for Android and iOS, and just last night was talking to a co-developer buddy of mine about the very real possibility that we could use moai to build a moai development environment on the iPad .. and now: this.<p>So, it looks like this is very feasible, and I have to admit to instantly buying this application the moment I read this HN article .. but I haven't had any chance to grok it yet.<p>If it works out, this could be the start of a new era for iPad/iOS development - certainly my iPad is good enough for editing lua scripts, and with a delicious framework like moai around (I really, really like it) I think it would be very viable. What an exciting future we iOS developers have!
somehow my idea of the ultimate coding platform for touch interfaces would be more symbolic/graphical (eg a few of wouter's languages, see <a href="http://strlen.com/language-design-overview" rel="nofollow">http://strlen.com/language-design-overview</a> or scratch from MIT). I know there are many limitations in that approach, but nonetheless it would be neat to push (or nudge) the boundaries of the modern development style.
Even though, my introduction to programming was through vi and notepad, often I find that when I'm trying to teach kids how to program, they're turned off by the 'clunkiness' of IDEs and compiling.<p>Imagine how amazing of an introduction to the world of programming Codify would enable for kids. Teaching computer science in elementary schools will become so much easier and fun. This looks like something kids would love to use. And perhaps, it'll enable a new wave of young hacker/entrepreneurs who'll go on to make more awesome products.
Game dev is great, but I'd love to see tools like this that let do more advanced scripting in a visual fashion without the emphasis on the visual aspect, such as sprites or animation. Processing is great at displaying things, but not so great at, you know, processing.<p>Similarly, I long for an easy to use scripting language environment on the tablet itself that doesn't require one to know HTML, CSS, JQuery, etc. and is not so focused on visualization and sprites, but instead just lets you create a page or tabs, get some data, do something with the data, and display a result while impacting another service. This would empower people to create their own experiences on the tablet instead of hoping some developer hits on their exact combination of needs.<p>I know, all HN readers are super-programmers, but I think back to the old days when folks wrote simple basic programs on their C64/Atari/Apple/etc. to solve simple problems... and how that's so difficult today on PCs, but could be brought back to life in the consumer-friendly world of tablets...
Just finished porting a javascript fractal tree generator, the javascript version is at<p><a href="http://www.mcdaid.eu/labs/codify1" rel="nofollow">http://www.mcdaid.eu/labs/codify1</a><p>and the code to run in codify is in the textarea (small)
I was thinking before that something like this needs to come to Android, too. Instead of emulating ARM hardware on x86 chips, you could directly build your app on an ARM machine. I suppose you'd still have to emulate other ARM devices, but I think it will work a lot better than on x86 chips.<p>Maybe Google can work with Eclipse to port it over to ARM/Android. Developers could get hybrid devices like the Asus Transformer to code on them.
"Wouldn't it be nifty to have that color picker in Vim?" a friend posed the question after my showing him the video.<p>Maybe: <a href="http://www.supaspoida.com/2011/10/26/a-short-story-about-a-tweet-a-video-an-idea-and-its-execution.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.supaspoida.com/2011/10/26/a-short-story-about-a-t...</a><p>(note: I didn't develop this, just sharing it with you all)
Codify's talks about import/export functionality via email coming in an update already submitted to Apple in this thread:<p><a href="http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?p=1975221" rel="nofollow">http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?p=1975221</a><p>It will be interesting to see if Apple allows them to do this.
Reminds me of Klick & Play back in the early 90's:
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klik" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klik</a><p>This app looks like the perfect thing for prospective obj-c devs to get that "I gotta make something cool now" monkey off my back.
Played around with it a bit, very cool.<p>I would love to see iCloud support and a desktop version. It would be awesome to have something like the Processing IDE with a sketchbook that automatically syncs between my devices (e.g. my iPad and MacBook).
this app also brought out some other options, check out paragraf where you can write glsl pixel code. <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/paragraf/id422685475?mt=8" rel="nofollow">http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/paragraf/id422685475?mt=8</a><p>It is the complete opposite in terms of ease of use, but it is still executing code. Also broken glsl code is way more likely to hard crash your phone than broken lua code.<p>There are some other options mentioned here: <a href="http://digitaltools.node3000.com/blog/3310-coding-ipad-coders-paragraf" rel="nofollow">http://digitaltools.node3000.com/blog/3310-coding-ipad-coder...</a>
This is fantastic. How lovely would it be if Apple bought this up for iOS Xcode. I have a feeling some day there will be a way to write iOS apps on iOS, provided by Apple.
Speaking as someone who's been around a few decades... Oh look, yet another way to create graphical games! I'll just add that to the list, near the end. It's a long list. :)<p>Purty looking, but color me not impressed. I already can sense what the constraints will be, and they aren't good. And I've gained really nothing new I couldn't already do before.