First user experiences

[Procrat]

Having had my first experience with the Enso product yesterday, I figured it would be good to share my first experiences in case it can help improve our product. I only accessed online resources (so mostly without asking for help) to adequately capture what other new users would encounter. I believe this is a product that's well on its way to being amazing, so don't take these points as criticism.

🔵/🟡/🔴	Low/medium/high importance to me as a user
🐛/❔	Bug / unexpected behaviour

• Building the IDE

  • 🔵❔[Tracked] It didn't find the right Node version, even though it was installed, not as the system default but with a Node version manager.
    • After putting a .node-version file in the repo root, that worked fine. That way it works for any Node version manager (fnm, nvm, nvs, n, nave, nodeenv, nodist, ...)
      I can make a PR with it, but the version number would be duplicated in build-config.yaml, unless the build script were to look for the version number.
  • 🔵❔[Tracked] It complained that it couldn't find conda. I guessed it tried to install flatbuffers/flatc, which is the only mention of conda in CONTRIBUTING.md. (I hadn't installed it as it was marked as optional in the README.) However, after I installed flatc directly, it still failed with the same error. After digging through the logs, I saw a warning saying Failed to find flatc in version == 1.12.0. Found version: 23.3.3.
    Ilya suggested building with a specific release of the engine, e.g.:

    ./run ide build --backend-source=release --backend-release=latest
    

• Running Enso

  • 🟡🐛 It seems to take up half of CPU time (even before a project is opened).
  • 🟡❔[Tracked] Starting an example project takes a while without any user feedback (e.g. a spinner).
  • Trying out the Stargazers example
    • 🔵🐛 Why is the preview of the Data.fetch node empty? Shouldn't it show the returned JSON?
    • 🟡❔ Why can't I edit nodes? Is this a read-only project? However, I can seem to add new ones? It was only later when I watched the intro video (which I almost never do when trying new software), I realised I had to use Ctrl. Just like double-clicking creates a new node, I would have expected that double-clicking a node enters edit mode.
    • 🔴🐛[Tracked here and here] When I drag and drop from the bottom of the last node (to create a new node with that as input), it immediately selects Table.from_rows, which after a second shows an error message "Method from_rows of Table.value could not be found." in a box that completely covers the input box, so that I'm unable to see what I type.
    • 🔵❔ When a project is opened, I don't understand how I can switch to a different project.
  • 🟡🐛 At some point, Enso kept running in the background after closing it (and keeping a CPU core busy at 100%). It didn't stop when I tried to kill it with the TERM, INT or HUP signals. I had to kill it with the KILL signal. The logs printed:

    OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM warning: Exception java.lang.ClassCircularityError occurred dispatching signal SIGTERM to handler- the VM may need to be forcibly terminated
    

  • 🟡❔ I was typing a string literal into a node at some point. When pressing Enter, I assumed it would commit the change and go out of edit mode, just like in Excel. However, it instead selected some item from the component browser and replaced what I had typed.
  • 🔵❔[Tracked] When ctrl-clicking on an existing node, I would expect the component browser to show the documentation of the currently selected method.

• On cloud.enso.org

  • 🟡🐛 At some point there was an error saying it got disconnected (even though I didn't lose my internet connection as far as I know). So I reloaded the page and it said

    Failed to initialize application: Invalid websocket specification: SyntaxError: Failed to construct 'WebSocket': The URL 'undefinedjson' is invalid..
    

    (including those two dots at the end).
    Returning back to cloud.enso.org showed that the workspace had stopped, so that's probably what went wrong.
  • 🔵🐛 At some point, a node showed a warning

    Error:
    org.enso.interpreter.runtime.control.ThreadInterruptedException
    

    I'm not sure what went wrong and I can't reproduce it. Refreshing the page fixed it.
  • 🔴🐛 Without any particular trigger, I completely lost my work at some point! It suddenly reverted my whole solution back to the 0.up_to 100 . to_vector . map .noise example. This was a particulary frustrating experience.
  • 🔵🐛 Clicking the close button on the top left doesn't do anything.
  • 🔵🐛 When creating a node, everything seems to freeze for a second. The pointer doesn't even update.

• Using the REPL

  • 🔵🐛 Pressing Enter without any input throws an NPE instead of doing nothing.
  • 🟡❔ It's not obvious to me how I can make modules available. In the IDE, Table.read was immediately available. In the REPL, I tried:

    import Standard.Table
    import Table
    

    But neither worked.
  • 🟡❔ The last thing I tried was running Python through the REPL:

    foreign python f """
        print('test')
    

    But that also gave a NPE. I gave up on using the REPL at this point.

• Trying a book club challenge

  • 🔵🐛[Tracked here and here] On a Date.parse node, I selected "Report Error", after which it completed to Standard.Base.Error.Problem_Behavior.Report_Error but then it said

    Method `Problem_Behavior` of Error could not be found.
    

  • 🔵🐛 The preview of a Day_Of_Week showed [Object object].
  • 🔵🐛 Table.from_objects throws an exception for anything that isn't a JS_Object, Number, Boolean, Text or Nothing, but the docs don't mention that.

• Syntax reference

  • 🟡🐛 There's a broken link on "The installation process can be different depending on your operating system, so please find detailed instructions here."
  • 🔵🐛 There's a heading that says "Argument Blocks Blocks".
  • 🔵❔ I didn't understand this:

    This operation only "looks through" one level of parentheses. This means that (f _ a) is the same as x -> (f x a), rather than (x -> f x a).
    I thought f x a already binds tighter than ->, so don't those parse the same way?

• Component reference

  • 🔴❔ I'm not sure why I can't click on a lot of intermediate nodes on the tree on the left. For example, I was expecting to be able to click on Base -> Data to read up on Data.read, but that didn't work.
  • 🟡❔ I tried looking for File_Format, which the documentation of Data.read mentions, but I couldn't find it. I also couldn't find Day_Of_Week.

[vitvakatu]

It didn't find the right Node version, even though it was installed, not as the system default but with a Node version manager.

That's great! I really want to avoid manually setting node version via nvm when switching between the branches. @mwu-tow do you think the proposed solution is possible? @Procrat please create an issue for that.

It complained that it couldn't find conda.

We need to update our docs with clear instructions. Installing the correct flatc version is extremely difficult on some platforms. I remember we even had an issue somewhere on Github where we were attaching instructions for patching and installing flatc. @Procrat please create an issue for that.

Starting an example project takes a while without any user feedback (e.g. a spinner).

Tracked in #5505

Why is the preview of the Data.fetch node empty? Shouldn't it show the returned JSON?

Indeed. @jdunkerley is it a bug?

I realised I had to use Ctrl.

Fair point, but the decision to use Ctrl is deliberate. I think no actions are needed for now, although we can revisit it in the future.

When I drag and drop from the bottom of the last node (to create a new node with that as input), it immediately selects Table.from_rows

I think this should be covered by a bunch of tasks for CB. Namely #5232 and #5356

When a project is opened, I don't understand how I can switch to a different project.

Ctrl-O (or Cmd-O) should work, though it is a temporary solution. Later we will do it using a Dashboard.

At some point, Enso kept running in the background after closing it

What OS do you use? It is normal for Mac, but shouldn't happen otherwise.

I was typing a string literal into a node at some point. When pressing Enter, I assumed it would commit the change and go out of edit mode, just like in Excel.

Again, it's a deliberate decision, but we're aware that it might be suboptimal for some users.

When ctrl-clicking on an existing node, I would expect the component browser to show the documentation of the currently selected method.

Yeah, I would like it too. I think we will cover it with #5354, we had talked about it with @farmaazon

On cloud.enso.org

Please create an issue for every point you listed, if you can reproduce it.

[jdunkerley]

Why is the preview of the Data.fetch node empty? Shouldn't it show the returned JSON?

Indeed. @jdunkerley is it a bug?

Will check over the example set again this week and see what is not working again!

When a project is opened, I don't understand how I can switch to a different project.

Ctrl-O (or Cmd-O) should work, though it is a temporary solution. Later we will do it using a Dashboard.

One small improvement for here would be to include the new project in the Ctrl-O menu. cc: @farmaazon

[hubertp]

On a Date.parse node, I selected "Report Error", after which it completed to Standard.Base.Error.Problem_Behavior.Report_Error but then it said
Method Problem_Behavior of Error could not be found.

Known issues #5901 and #5902.

Regarding some other backend issues - I would appreciate if you included full logs with stacktraces. Can't do much with oneliners.