Which version of live code to start with?

[Vanceone]

So I'm looking at developing a couple of apps with LiveCode. Right now, we have the 6.6 branch, the 6.7 branch, and the 7.0 branch. They seem different in terms of capability; by that I mean 7 has all of 6.7's changes, correct? 6.6.4 has the ability to submit on iOS 8; which none of the others has right now.

Clearly 7 is the way to go in the future, but for how long? I mean, how long should we be expecting before 7 contains all the prior version good stuff? Or should I start with 6.6, the stable branch, and not be able to take advantage of the unicode and cocoa goodness yet?

With no backwards comp ability to worry about (yet), Is there any reason to not start on 7? Aside from the obvious: if I want to support PowerPC and Leopard, I have to stick with 6.6?

Thanks!

Also, are most third party tools compatible with all three branches of Livecode right now? Or are there showstopping things that we have to be wary of?

[FourthWorld]

As a general rule, it's usually best to use the latest stable version for production work, and if you have time to test any pre-release versions that's always helpful and much appreciated.

Right now the current stable version is 6.6.4.

The focus of v6.7 was Cocoa for OS X, and all of the changes introduced there are now present in v7.0, whose focus has been primarily Unicode and for Linux a transition to better GTK support (similar in scope to the OS X Cocoa support for v6.7).

As for third-party tools, it varies by vendor, so you'll need to check with the developers for any tools you need. That said, LiveCode has a very good track record of backward compatibility, so often tools made for older versions will continue to work well going forward.

[Vanceone]

Usually I would agree, but isn't the Unicode transition a large, backwards compatibility breaking transition? By that I mean moving textual data in and out of Livecode will change, so socket or file access will be changed. So if I build on 6.6.4, won't I have to go back and rewrite my outside interfacing code differently once 7 is stabilized? So by starting with 6.6.4, are not I just creating more work for later that I could avoid by starting on 7?

Or is there not as big a difference as I thought?

[FourthWorld]

Read the Release Notes for v7, and give it a try. I think you'll be impressed with how little has been deprecated and how much had been automated.