But does Light Table now without its original founders have any steam behind it? A glance at its GitHub tells me no.

It probably doesn’t have much momentum but it contributed enough that Chris Lattner was motivated to do Swift Playgrounds.

To paraphrase Isaac Newton, we stand on each other’s shoulders. Other people need to stand on their shoulders.

Most of the time developers want tools for free. That makes for slow progress.

A few developers stand on the shoulders of giants and try to see the future so they can shove the state of the art forward a little bit.

Some developers stand in the footprints of giants and complain about the view.

Many developers stand in the footprints of giants, don't realize they're standing in footprints, and will argue very loudly that the particular muddy footprint they're stuck in is amazing, and you're an idiot if you disagree.

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I admire group #1. And I don't blame group #2. You've got to pay the bills somehow, and most people can't afford to join group #1.