In some respects similar to Brackets as it is a desktop app exploiting web technologies (JS front end) - and like Brackets we are sitting somewhere between 'basic editors' and a full blown IDE . However, there are some key differences in terms of tech and where we are heading.
From a tech point of view we are full JS end to end (server being a Node app). In terms of the features of the software itself, Brackets with quick-edits is going in a slightly different direction to us as we are making much more investment in understanding the source structure, with our recoverable JS parser and AMD/CommonJS awareness. We're focusing on smarter inferencing and better content assist for JavaScript - mainly because those are the real pain points we are having as programmers working with the language.
Scripted doesn't yet have the deployment story but obviously we are interested in that space and also some nice integrated debugging - but we don't want to unnecessarily duplicate the excellent Chrome Dev Tools.
It isn't quite pure Esprima, we (Scripted) are using my (unfinished!) fork of Esprima that has some recovery features. That way we can get a decent AST out even when there are errors, it is setup here for playing around with: http://aclement.github.com/esprima/demo/parse.html
Hi. I'm one of the Scripted guys, let me chip in on that.
The team working on Scripted are also the guys creating language/framework tooling on the bigger IDE platforms - so writing Eclipse plugins. The real developers using those tools are starting to write more JavaScript whilst at the same time there is the new wave of developers coming straight into JavaScript who aren't great fans of IDEs - usually from the point of view that they are a bit 'heavy' for what they are trying to achieve. We even surveyed some teams about what they were using for JavaScript and that confirmed this tendency towards more lightweight editors.
We could have just done our usual thing and crank out more eclipse plugins but we wanted to investigate something more radical. I, myself, still use vi when I'm on the command line because it is so easy and just works. We wanted to create something with that convenience and speed but that had the key capabilities that can really help productivity - so early error indication through things like JSLint as well as good content assist and fast navigation.
We are also aware of the increasing buzz around Cloud IDEs and wanted to explore that too. We tried some prototype full Cloud IDE setups (so server side workspace with browser interface) but didn't get much traction. This approach of desktop client/server app with potentially movable server let's us start where we think users want us and grow to server side workspace setups later. I know this setup is working for me as we are using Scripted to develop Scripted.
From a tech point of view we are full JS end to end (server being a Node app). In terms of the features of the software itself, Brackets with quick-edits is going in a slightly different direction to us as we are making much more investment in understanding the source structure, with our recoverable JS parser and AMD/CommonJS awareness. We're focusing on smarter inferencing and better content assist for JavaScript - mainly because those are the real pain points we are having as programmers working with the language.
Scripted doesn't yet have the deployment story but obviously we are interested in that space and also some nice integrated debugging - but we don't want to unnecessarily duplicate the excellent Chrome Dev Tools.