Language Server Protocol(github.com)

87 pointsby hota_mazi10 tahun yang lalu28 comments

https://github.com/Microsoft/language-server-protocol

30 comments

sctb10 tahun yang lalu

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11988446

Eridrus10 tahun yang lalu

I'm on the fence about this, standardization let's people pool resources to provide common functionality, but it also ossifies the interface so that doing anything not supported by the interface becomes harder than before.

The first thing that pops into my head is that for languages with interprocedural type inference, I really want my IDE to show me what types it has inferred, but this is outside the spec and not even applicable to all languages.

riffraff10 tahun yang lalu

wouldn't inferred types fit into the "Diagnostic" interface? There are both "info" and "hint" levels which seem appropriate.

(I don't disagree with your general point, just curious about this specific example)

Eridrus10 tahun yang lalu

Sort of; the hover interface helps, but I would prefer it if the IDE showed it as if it was written there explicitly, not just when you hover over it.

Which requires explicit UI work, which this protocol won't support.

hitr10 tahun yang lalu

With this,a new language can have an IDE integration done easily which can cover say 95% features. Some language specific feature may be obviously left out but getting a minimum viable integration to any supported IDE is a good thing.May be when this protocol evolves,it can give extension to the protocols to cover the other 5% features(or may be it is already there)

Eridrus10 tahun yang lalu

Heh. We'll see. Writing the glue code is not what makes writing language analysis hard. This is clearly a move to make the lives of IDE writers easier, rather than those who would be writing the analysis code.

euyyn10 tahun yang lalu

But it'd make your analysis code work for multiple IDEs and editors instead of having to learn about each's peculiarities. One less thing to worry about is always good.

[deleted]10 tahun yang lalu

avita110 tahun yang lalu

Are there any examples of extensible protocols like this in the wild? I'm asking because the only such protocol that seems to get mentioned on HN is XMPP (and always with groans).

[deleted]10 tahun yang lalu

jntrnr10 tahun yang lalu

We're considering moving the new Rust language service over to this protocol, or possibly, having it as a default protocol while supporting other protocols.

Since I've been learning it recently, maybe some points to help understand it:

It's just the protocol piece. Currently, VSCode will stand up the language server and communicate using the protocol over stdin/stdout. Nothing to say they couldn't support http servers in the future, but currently it seems lower level that that.

They do support hovers, which you can use for seemingly anything. We currently are using them for type information and showing API docs.

I'm hoping this takes on with other editors, as once they support it, then they'll get the stronger language support the servers provide, which can do hovers, on-the-fly error checking, code navigation, and more. It's not perfect, but as a baseline set of features, it's a pretty good starting set.

Edmond10 tahun yang lalu

This is great! Abstracting away static code analysis is very helpful for people like us building browser based dev tools.

I am the developer of HiveMind (crudzilla.com), I have been dragging my feet about plunging into static code analysis so this type of solution is definitely intriguing.

qwertyuiop92410 tahun yang lalu

Well, us emacs users will finally get some decent autocomplete. So that's nice, I suppose.

This actually sounds an awful lot like what Grok was trying to do. Any relation in the development?

lann10 tahun yang lalu

See Kythe (Google OSS): http://kythe.io/

qwertyuiop92410 tahun yang lalu

Heh. Neat.

falcolas10 tahun yang lalu

I only glanced through the document, but I didn't see anything which could verify that the "Tool" and the "Language Server" are both referring to the same content. Is there a mechanism for handling this kind of synchronization drift?

icholy10 tahun yang lalu

See TextDocumentSyncKind and TextDocumentItem.

eatonphil10 tahun yang lalu

Does anyone know what tool was used to create that diagram?

rkangel10 tahun yang lalu

I very much doubt it was used in this case, but https://www.websequencediagrams.com/ is great if you want to do Message Sequence Charts.

lttlrck10 tahun yang lalu

The blues look like a PowerPoint theme. You might like http://blockdiag.com/en/seqdiag/index.html

danlindley10 tahun yang lalu

There are many ways to go about, but it could be easily achieved with any diagramming or graphics application. For example, LibreOffice Draw or Microsoft Visio.

IshKebab10 tahun yang lalu

No idea, but if you want to make similar diagrams I recommend PlantUML. Default colours suck a bit but they are easy to change.

WorldMaker10 tahun yang lalu

My first guess is Visio. (Followed by Excel, PowerPoint, or Word.)

protomyth10 tahun yang lalu

What happens when I don't have internet access? Do I install a second piece of software on by box?

killercup10 tahun yang lalu

The "server" in "language server" does not mean "server you access over the network" but "other process (on your machine) your editor talks to". (This is just the spec for a protocol.)

protomyth10 tahun yang lalu

Can it be on across the internet? So, Apple can or cannot set up an internet service for Swift? If I think I have a better version can I point my editor towards that? If I program in a couple of languages, do I need to get ahold of servers to install?

Etzos10 tahun yang lalu

> Can it be on across the internet?

In theory, yes the protocol can be used across the internet, but that would raise plenty of issues (security being a huge one). This is designed so that any program, like an IDE, can get code analysis and more without having to build special handling for each of them.

> So, Apple can or cannot set up an internet service for Swift?

Again, in theory they could. But why would they do that? Just run the server locally and get all the information there.

> If I think I have a better version can I point my editor towards that?

Yes. You simply stop the currently running language server and start the one you want to use instead.

> If I program in a couple of languages, do I need to get ahold of servers to install?

Yes. Each language would, in theory, provide its own server to do analysis. Of course, your favorite IDE would likely be more than happy to start the server for you if it's not running yet (as it's just a small process that runs in the background).

If you want to see how this works in practice just grab Visual Studio Code and start editing a Typescript file. This is already in use there.

protomyth10 tahun yang lalu

> In theory, yes the protocol can be used across the internet, but that would raise plenty of issues (security being a huge one). This is designed so that any program, like an IDE, can get code analysis and more without having to build special handling for each of them.

I'm pretty sure I would be ok at part of teaching a class.

> Again, in theory they could. But why would they do that? Just run the server locally and get all the information there.

I was getting at that from the student-level. I'm pretty sure some metrics on edge problems in a remote learning class might help with the material revisions.

Arcsech10 tahun yang lalu

To answer your points in order: No reason it couldn't talk across the Internet, I guess, if you're comfortable sending your source code to whoever is running the server and dealing with network latency on your autocomplete. Yes, you could easily point your editor to a different server, this protocol is basically just an API spec. And lastly, yes, you would (likely) need a different server for each of your languages - this project just provides a way to let an IDE implement one API client that can be used with each different language's tools.

protomyth10 tahun yang lalu

> To answer your points in order: No reason it couldn't talk across the Internet, I guess, if you're comfortable sending your source code to whoever is running the server and dealing with network latency on your autocomplete.

I'm thinking as part of a remote learning class. I'm pretty comfortable that it wouldn't violate any student privacy rules.