2009-01-30

Mozilla Bespin

UPDATE: Mozilla released Bespin today. Their post is at http://labs.mozilla.com/2009/02/introducing-bespin/.



I was at a conference today, and heard about a new software program or something that's coming out: Mozilla Bespin (pronounced like "best pin", but without the "t" at the end of "best"). It's essentially an online IDE, and a dang good one at that. From what was shown at the conference, it has integrated syntax highlighting and formatting.

The editor was shown editing javascript. I don't know how it's syntax highlighting and editing features are supported for other languages.

Bespin has an integrated file explorer, used for exploring files within the project to be edited. It looks similar to Mac OS X's Finder when it's set to show each nested folder in a pane, with deeper levels to the right. (if someone knows mac's name for that type of view, post a comment and let me know.) You can open files and edit them, and then save them.

Bespin also has an integrated command line, which supports a lot of standard commands (such as rm and mkdir).

Bespin either has or will have support for integrating with version control systems. I can't remember if they said that it would integrate with CVS or Subversion, or both, but it was one of those.

Bespin is going to be officially released in a week or two, according to Mozilla, so let's see what happens. Until it officially comes out, take everything that I say here with a grain of salt, since I completely forgot a pen and paper (and my computer), so I couldn't take notes during the presentation.

3 comments:

mahdaeng said...

I was a that very same conference too. I dug Bespin. I'm itching to get my hands on it and try it out.

By the way, they handed out notebooks and pens at registration, so you don't have an excuse. :^)

Alex Boyd said...

:)

I know. I got there after it had started so I registered after. I wish I had been there earlier though.

Anonymous said...

I was also at that conference and liked the idea. Now, whether or not I would use it is a different story, we'll have to see.

I hope it is a product I can download and install on my own server, not something that they host and I am required to pay for or otherwise keep my files on their servers. With regards to this aspect of the product, either they didn't say anything about it or I wasn't paying attention when they did. They said they would be releasing it "next week" though I am willing to bet that is subject to change.

Personally, I really like the Aptana IDE in case you haven't seen or used that...