Great idea! During my time as a researcher, I heavily used org-babel. I used it to put code for data wrangling, plots, and notes into a single document. The notes would often contain formulas to describe what was done. I would regularly export that to PDF using pdflatex to send it to collaborators. Maybe this is an avenue worth considering for Ledge.
This is awesome I will definitely play around with it. Fits the niche gap as a standalone app vs something like [Observable Framework](https://observablehq.github.io/framework/) for data analytical type things.
I wish Notion could just integrate these things together and make it work, or someone build an Obsidian plugin. More often than not it would be so convenient to do something like this.
This is pretty cool. I've been interested in runnable code in markdown for a long time. It's a kind of "literate programming¹" which I've always thought was one of Knuth's best ideas.
More prior art: xcfile²
I've used xc³ for a long time now and it's fairly solid. The idea of runnable markdown is definitely useful. A lot of projects have attempted it and none that I've seen have achieved what I'd call perfection, however, xc gets close enough for my needs.
I'll check out Ledge a bit more thoroughly and give some feedback if I can think of anything constructive. I think xc is probably more suited for my uses, however, I do like electrobun and that seems like a good runtime to build something like this.
Here's what I like about xc:
1. It's built with GO and brings all the power of go's template engine. The portability of go's runtime means that it is just one binary and doesn't have any crazy runtime dependencies.
2. It has a built in dependency system so that each block of code can be predicated on another block completing. It can also ensure that each block in a dependency chain runs just once.
I've built a sort of configuration management system for my home infrastructure with config files in a git repo and all the deployment scripts and dependencies directly in the readme. I use it to maintain and deploy changes to my router, firewall rules, dhcp and dns, git repositories, and various containers.
Interesting. This seems like a good alternative to Jupyter Notebooks. I get annoyed when working with them using agents. They avoid editing the file directly because there is too much JSON bloat (or sometimes image bytes). It'd be great if this had a config option / toggle for 'Notebook mode' that would enable Jupyter-like execution, e.g., run all cells above, below, etc, so I could use it as a notebook.
https://jupytext.org/ may be what you're looking for! It saves Notebook files as Python/text files, and can open them as Notebooks. I've mostly used it for improved version control and easier file inspection, but they recently started advertising the agent use case on their website.
I went to look at Atuin Desktop to see what the crossover was with this product, and it's fascinating to see that the repo was archived the day this was posted here!
Very cool! I launched something similar as well. My idea was to create a working document in which people could develop their own tools and agents. Conversations with coding agents are treated as editable, executable documents. Both the person and the agent can write on the same page. Rather than correcting a mistake in a follow-up, you can rewrite it, delete a detour, or edit and re-run an earlier prompt. The file is always readable Markdown.
Check out: https://piary.dev/
Feel free to get in touch if you are open to an exchange, you can find my contact details in the write-up.
As an Emacs user for over a decade I think this is brilliant, it solves my biggest gripes with org-babel which prevent me from using it in a team setting.
Ledge is a lot like org-babel from Emacs, but for muggles: a familiar UI, and common format go a long way.
I wonder what would org-babel for team settings look like? Disk/interchange format seems less interesting than what gets shipped around and what the UX feels like.
I can foresee my team using this for documenting our local tooling. I’m wondering also if it could store a login token to make authenticated requests with, to create sales handovers from.
I feel like there has been a few takes on this (atuin desktop comes to mind[0] but apparently it's not a going concern anymore?) why hasn't it caught on?
I'm curious about this too. Org-babel, Jupyter, Atuin Desktop, etc. have explored similar ideas, but none became a mainstream way of working.
For people who used these tools long-term: what held them back? UX/accessibility, or do people simply prefer keeping documents separate from the actual work?
we saw a bunch of issues with desktop, in no particular order
1. authoring runbooks is difficult, most people barely document their work let alone make it executable
2. keeping runbooks up to date is difficult, they are error-prone across systems
3. agents are now pretty good at a number of the tasks these ideas solve for, and are good at working around issues caused by docs becoming out of date/etc
all these tools are great for your own notes, but are very difficult to scale
1. Ledge's bet is it shouldn't feel like authoring at all. I've always had markdown docs chock full of commands and docs so making them runnable was the next logical step for me.
2. True. Keeping any kind of documentation up to date is difficult
3. Also true. I'm hoping Ledge's built-in agent support will bridge that gap and allow agents to help keep the docs up-to-date
And yes, a "Team" notebook is a challenge. Technically anyone with SSH access can all share a Ledge notebook. But that probably doesn't get us all the way there.
Thanks again for providing your thoughts. This by no means is a solved problem but I'm interested to see where it goes!
Thanks for answering. That's really interesting.
Maybe agents flip this around. Instead of humans maintaining executable docs, the actual work generates the document.
It could become something like a PR-style review layer for agent work. You don't necessarily need to understand the underlying code or tooling, but you can inspect what changed, why it changed, and approve or reject it.
Do you think that would address any of the scaling problems you saw?
cool idea, do you have any plans to integrate command generation with the shell completion / aliases / functions? Say I have tons of muscle memory on using ctrl-r fzf to get things from history, or on pressing tab to autocomplete pod names etc. so I would never write out a full kubectl command to execute by hand
Ctrl-R, fzf and tab completion work in the terminal drawer. But completion in the editor doesn't exist currently. Really good idea, however so let me look into it!
Good question. Main differences of Ledge: You don't need Emacs for those of us that don't use it already. Markdown instead of Org syntax. Shells are interactive by default. Mobile apps can run the shell/code.
Woooow! I love the idea of having documentation that I can just run directly as I'm reading through it, that also has a nice GUI to it.
There's a similar product called Atuin Desktop (https://github.com/atuinsh/desktop) that uses Tauri for the GUI and the performance is just abysmal (makes my pc fans spin up like crazy when I launch it and navigate around), and have been on a lookout for something that handles the GUI aspect better. Definitely going to try this out.
Jupyter is great. From what I recall it's bash kernel isn't a real terminal session so sudo prompts, top, etc can tend to get a bit wonky. I also have a preference towards Markdown over .ipynb.
This is all valid, but I'd suggest rethinking the slogan "The notebook that runs code" at the top of the README. I much prefer .md too and haven't used notebooks regularly in years, but nevertheless I scoffed when I read that (I thought: hasn't this guy heard of Jupyter?). I believe you'd be better off not calling this a "notebook" at all since that terms tends to describe something slightly different than what you have here.
In truth I think it was just the use of the definite article that got me. This is a notebook that runs code, not the notebook that runs code. I just think this is cool and it could be better differentiated.
Yes, strong Hammacher Schlemmer vibes. I noticed years ago that they try to make every product sound like the pinnacle by prefacing it with "The". Somewhat effective, until you catch on.
Scoffing and thinking "hasn't this guy heard of Jupyter" says more about your attitude than it does the tool or its README copy.
Hasn't this guy heard of [old product that is a huge pain and no one likes]? Why would he ever make something that suits his own interests and preferences?
Yes, exactly. I'm sharing with this creator what my initial knee-jerk reaction was, admittedly exaggerating a bit. In case he'd like to avoid other people having a similar reaction. (And indeed, he thanked me for my feedback.)
It seems like you think that pointing out that I'm sharing my attitude is some sort of gotcha, but I'm confused. Sharing one's attitude is the whole point of posting an internet comment, isn't it?
Marimo - recently had a lot of success with this: https://marimo.io/
RMarkdown: https://rmarkdown.rstudio.com/
Quarto: (this is more the editor really I guess) https://quarto.org/
I wish Notion could just integrate these things together and make it work, or someone build an Obsidian plugin. More often than not it would be so convenient to do something like this.
More prior art: xcfile²
I've used xc³ for a long time now and it's fairly solid. The idea of runnable markdown is definitely useful. A lot of projects have attempted it and none that I've seen have achieved what I'd call perfection, however, xc gets close enough for my needs.
I'll check out Ledge a bit more thoroughly and give some feedback if I can think of anything constructive. I think xc is probably more suited for my uses, however, I do like electrobun and that seems like a good runtime to build something like this.
Here's what I like about xc:
1. It's built with GO and brings all the power of go's template engine. The portability of go's runtime means that it is just one binary and doesn't have any crazy runtime dependencies.
2. It has a built in dependency system so that each block of code can be predicated on another block completing. It can also ensure that each block in a dependency chain runs just once.
I've built a sort of configuration management system for my home infrastructure with config files in a git repo and all the deployment scripts and dependencies directly in the readme. I use it to maintain and deploy changes to my router, firewall rules, dhcp and dns, git repositories, and various containers.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literate_programming
2. https://xcfile.dev/
3. https://github.com/joerdav/xc
https://github.com/atuinsh/desktop
Feel free to get in touch if you are open to an exchange, you can find my contact details in the write-up.
To be clear, is the issue with org-babel that it's not accessible to other people on the team? or something else that this solves?
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YufgfbUgEgI and xiki.org
0: https://github.com/atuinsh/desktop
For people who used these tools long-term: what held them back? UX/accessibility, or do people simply prefer keeping documents separate from the actual work?
we saw a bunch of issues with desktop, in no particular order
1. authoring runbooks is difficult, most people barely document their work let alone make it executable
2. keeping runbooks up to date is difficult, they are error-prone across systems
3. agents are now pretty good at a number of the tasks these ideas solve for, and are good at working around issues caused by docs becoming out of date/etc
all these tools are great for your own notes, but are very difficult to scale
1. Ledge's bet is it shouldn't feel like authoring at all. I've always had markdown docs chock full of commands and docs so making them runnable was the next logical step for me.
2. True. Keeping any kind of documentation up to date is difficult
3. Also true. I'm hoping Ledge's built-in agent support will bridge that gap and allow agents to help keep the docs up-to-date
And yes, a "Team" notebook is a challenge. Technically anyone with SSH access can all share a Ledge notebook. But that probably doesn't get us all the way there.
Thanks again for providing your thoughts. This by no means is a solved problem but I'm interested to see where it goes!
Very happy to hear what you think of it. I've built it specifically for reviewing outcomes instead of impementations.
Humans define what correct looks like, agents implement and attach evidence (image, videos, etc.) that humans can review.
https://hammacher.com/
Hasn't this guy heard of [old product that is a huge pain and no one likes]? Why would he ever make something that suits his own interests and preferences?
It seems like you think that pointing out that I'm sharing my attitude is some sort of gotcha, but I'm confused. Sharing one's attitude is the whole point of posting an internet comment, isn't it?