LiveCode Forums

Very nice entry Andre, well put and well explained.

FourthWorld wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 29, 2019 8:11 am

richmond62 wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 29, 2019 12:24 am

Every time something like this comes up I always wonder why LiveCode the company
say nothing.

What are they supposed to say?

I'd at least send out a press release about my product.

hypercardjdowns wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 02, 2019 4:40 pm

I'd at least send out a press release about my product.

I asked Kevin about that. Like many dev tool companies, he reports that he's found diminish returns with press releases in recent years, now devoting that time to boosting their YouTube channel instead.

I don't know what Kevin may have found and what he thinks about pushing LiveCode,
but certain facts speak for themselves:

1. LiveCode IS a minority thing that is NOT gaining any obvious traction.

2. I advertise LiveCode classes for children and young adults each year and
spend a ludicrous amount of time justifying my choice of LiveCode, and would
have far greater uptake for out-dated and out-moded ways of programming
computers such as C++ and the reborn-PASCAL rip-off Python.

3. I have children, who, every year are managing to get stuff going inwith
2 weeks (16 45 minute sessions) that learners of C++ at courses run round
these parts don't get to after 12 weeks.

ALSO:

Kevin IS a computer programmer of undisputed brilliance,
but he is NOT an expert in Education or Advertising; so, perhaps he might decide to
employ the odd expert in these fields to do some educational and market
research and develop strategies in these areas accordingly.

Have you considered the possibility that there may be many reasons why LC is not the world's most popular language beyond just press releases?

It's also worth noting that out of all the many hundreds of languages in use, LC has grown to become consistently included in the TIOBE Top 100 over the last two years. So adoption growth, while not beyond reasonable expectations, is demonstrably good.

Seriously, spend time with Java, Python, JavaScript, and C++ devs. Learn about those languages, and why developers use them. Hint: it isn't press releases.

Or, since you keep insisting this is somehow easy, show us how it's done: build a product in a highly competitive space where most of your competition is entirely free and very deeply entrenched for historical reasons, get your offering to #1, and show us how you did it.

A presumably simple exercise, is it not?

I'll add that the education market was the primary target for uptake and promotion a few years ago. That's how Scotland adopted LC as their intro programming language a few years ago. Focus then shifted to China (successful) and some other countries where it couldn't compete against educators who wanted to only teach free and widely established languages.

I'm not sure why you assume they didn't have a marketing director. They did.

Scotland adopted LC as their intro programming language a few years ago.

Really?

That's a very odd statement as a web search for this flags up:

"C+, C#, Java, Python and Ruby" (not entirely sure what "C+" is).

https://www.scotsman.com/future-scotlan ... -1-4001065

Certainly NO mention of LiveCode.

A few schools, maybe: but "Scotland" . . . want to be careful of global, sweeping statements like that.

Certainly, Gracemount school does not constitute "Scotland."

I'm not sure why you assume they didn't have a marketing director. They did.

I didn't assume that LiveCode didn't have a marketing director, what I did see is that that marketing director
doesn't seem to have marketed LiveCode to the extent that one would have hoped for.

If LiveCode is "so big" in Scotland,
how come the only Scotsman who is posting anything about LiveCode stays in Bulgaria?

https://community.computingatschool.org ... =resources

I probably phrased that badly. As I understand it, Scottish government controls much of the educational curriculum, and has included LC as a language suitable for students learning to code. More than 30% of the secondary schools in Scotland are using it as an introductory programming language as of 6 years ago.

http://newsletters.livecode.com/july/is ... etter3.php

I probably phrased that badly.

Never mind; on the second go you phrased it admirably.

jacque wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 09, 2019 3:35 pm

I probably phrased that badly. As I understand it, Scottish government controls much of the educational curriculum, and has included LC as a language suitable for students learning to code. More than 30% of the secondary schools in Scotland are using it as an introductory programming language as of 6 years ago.

It's been a forever mystery to me why xTalk has made so few inroads, in the grand scheme of things. There is an enormous push for "coding" classes across the United States, and I never hear word one about xTalk.

My son is currently at Purdue, studying mathematics. He has to take a coding class, so they push them all into to VB. We just started a new coding class in my school district. They are teaching it with C or some such.

It's ridiculous.

It's a catch-22. Schools want to teach what's currently in demand, which means they don't teach LC, which means it doesn't become in demand.

what's currently in demand

Personally I think that's nonsense for the following reasons:

1. ALL programming languages are built on the same underlying concepts
(i.e. unless you are a moron, having learnt one programming language
you can get up to speed reasonably quickly with another).

2. Employers generally want programmers post-university, so which
programming language they learnt at High School generally has no
bearing on things.

richmond62 wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 10, 2019 7:16 pm

what's currently in demand

1. ALL programming languages are built on the same underlying concepts
(i.e. unless you are a moron, having learnt one programming language
you can get up to speed reasonably quickly with another).

Ok, you got me, I'm a moron. Even though I've known (and used) quite a few languages, I've never found learning the next to be reasonably quick, although I hear that said a lot. Also, going from more traditional languages to *this* one was quite making me feel even more idiotic than usual

Dunno . . .

I went from FORTRAN IV, DBAS9 (early BASIC dialect), BBC BASIC, PASCAL V, ZILOG . . .
HyperCard, ToolBook (easily the lowest point in my programming life),
MetaCard, RunRev/LiveCode, Visual BASIC 6 (aberrational moment when
doing an MSc at a Mickey Mouse university).

Honestly the thing that helped me most re HyperCard and onwards was
BASIC.