Why LCB exists?

LiveCode Builder is a language for extending LiveCode's capabilities, creating new object types as Widgets, and libraries that access lower-level APIs in OSes, applications, and DLLs.

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rinzwind
Posts: 135
Joined: Tue May 01, 2012 10:44 am

Why LCB exists?

Post by rinzwind » Fri Nov 25, 2016 2:30 pm

Shouldn't it be possible to use the main programming/scripting language itself to produce widgets for it?... VB6 did it, Delphi and c# does it. Its reinventing the wheel and doesnt look good for LiveCode Script (since it should be flexible/fast enough to handle it) plus compiler design is not something easy to do next to the main job of maintaining and improving LiveCode (Script/IDE/Libraries/Tools). Better imho to improve livecode script so it can handle this situation. Even while LCB is targetted at more experienced developers theres still no "actor/object first notation (dot dot dot)". That makes context sensitive help impossible since the IDE can't possible know what object you're dealing it before you fully completed the code line... Also the marketing speaks about creating tons of widgets before the end of 2016, but the tools are not there. I want context sensitive code suggestions while typing, autocomplete, debugging support, graphical designers, best practices...

Well... the point being.., shouldn't LiveCode Script itself be suitable for the task of creating widgets/gadgets/controls?

peter-b
Posts: 182
Joined: Thu Nov 20, 2014 2:14 pm
Location: LiveCode Ltd.

Re: Why LCB exists?

Post by peter-b » Mon Nov 28, 2016 12:23 pm

LCB does some things that just can't be done in LiveCode Script (and indeed we don't want to do in LiveCode Script). It fills a very important niche: a language that can be used to do many of the things that we would previously use C++ to do, but which has similar accessible syntax to LiveCode Script.

The development team has discussed this a lot in the past, and I'm sure that searching in the mailing lists' archives and on the forums will pull up several previous discussions that go into plenty of detail about why LCB was created as a distinct language from LiveCode Script. :)
LiveCode Open Source Team — @PeterTBBrett — peter.brett@livecode.com

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