My point of view

[paul_gr]

Im discussing this within the community

Hi Javea71
There are two communities.
Many of the more experienced LC users don't use the forums, they use the list at
http://www.mail-archive.com/use-livecod ... index.html

Livecode employees are more likely to be seen on the list than here on the forums.

Paul

[FourthWorld]

I wasn't picking at your words, please don't take my post as that. I was highlighting the lack of engagement.

I'm not technically capable of contributing to a technical discussion on the engine or on widgets. That doesn't mean that I can't see a lack of engagement on those subjects from Livecode with the community, it doesn't invalidate my view that for opensource projects the bar is much higher than it was a few years ago.

LiveCode v8 has been in the works a very long time, perhaps more than a year. During that time there have been several webinars, blog posts, and at least one Global Jam centered around inviting early feedback into the LiveCode Builder and the Widget spec to make sure it covers developers' needs.

In fact, much of the Engine Contributors section of these forums deals with LC v8 and there are threads devoted to Builder and Widgets specifically.

If all of these efforts to bring the community together to solicit feedback were missed, I'll take that on myself. While my role as Community Manager is a volunteer one, I'd like to make sure any interested contributor has the info and resources to do what they want to do with LiveCode.

If you have suggestions on how I or the team might better promote the various events and venues for soliciting developer feedback please feel free to note them here. While business matters like pricing for proprietary licenses are solely managed within the company, developer engagement benefits the open source side of things and therefore I should be in a position to help.

Im discussing this within the community, whether I choose to email them or not, it's doesn't invalidate my views expressed on here

Agreed. Everyone is free to spend their time as they like, and these forums have an unusually liberal moderation policy.

I was just offering guidance on how to get messages intended for the company into their hands.

Do you or any other senior posters receive license discounts from Livecode for your presence on the forums?

No. Moderators, project team leaders, and other roles in support of the community are among the ways those of us not proficient in C++ can still make meaningful contributions to the project.

I contribute a fair bit of time to the Ubuntu project as well, as one of the co-organizers of the UbuCon Summit and other Ubuntu events.

With both projects I also help with testing and forum support as time permits, because both LiveCode and Ubuntu have played key roles for my company and those of my clients. Happy to pay it forward where I can.

Without you guys there would be no community at all.

True. Without community there would be no community.

But that's not to say the core dev team is entirely absent either. Dr. Peter Brett was hired last year specifically because of his experience and passion for open source process. Among his other responsibilities he's also the Open Source Team Lead, and can help anyone interested in contributing to find the resources they need. You'll also see Neil offering support with technical questions in these forums from time to time, and you'll find many posts from Panos and others in the IDE Contributors forum, and from Monte Goulding and CTO Mark Waddingham in the Engine Contributors forum.

The core team does try to stay focused on the development tasks we demand of them, but when they can they do engage in the open source sections of the forums often.

[FourthWorld]

Im discussing this within the community

Hi Javea71
There are two communities.
Many of the more experienced LC users don't use the forums, they use the list at
http://www.mail-archive.com/use-livecod ... index.html

There are far more than two - like many communities, ours is quite diverse, though the forums get the most traffic and the list is a close second, which is why both of them (and the LiveCode thread in Stack Overflow) are linked to directly in the IDE's Help menu.

I recently pulled together a brief list of LC community venues:
http://lists.runrev.com/pipermail/use-l ... 28274.html

Livecode employees are more likely to be seen on the list than here on the forums.

Depends on the forums, but yes, being somewhat old-school the mail list format does seem to get more frequent attention from Mark Waddingham lately.

[Nikos]

FourthWorld wrote: What has changed is that the relatively minor license fees from hobbyists are now optional donations, and perhaps interestingly now that they're optional they rarely happen at all. Please remember that nearly every suggested price point in this and related threads had been tried before. If a low-priced limited option was the savior solution hoped for we wouldn't be having this discussion. Those who don't derive revenue from a software just have less software revenue to share, and I don't think that arithmetic is a failing of LiveCode or its audience, just a reflection of the nature of dev tool economies.

LC (the company) seems to have tried many license approaches. But each and every price point that has been tried before, was tried IN THE CIRCUMSTANCES AT THE TIME. It is not the same to charge $299 for LC7, a product which by Kevin's admission may have been better not to be released at all, and to charge the same $299 for LC8. It is not the same to compare the "rental" model and the "ownership" model. And the community is (I hope - don't have the numbers) larger now than it was when other price points were tried.

The most basic failing has been to involve the existing community in licensing massively. So many KickStarter and other crowdfunding contributors - so many long-time users, all treated the same as a brand new user. There was a $299 lock-in campaign one year ago, that was offensive enough to say that it was for the benefit of existing LC users, yet it was offered to all.

I'm posting in the forum and not directly to LC HQ because, as I mentioned, their mind is clearly already made up regarding the "small slice of the pie" plan, even though it's not working. If there is any reaction, it will come from the community.

Here's what I did: I paid $49 for accessing the livestream event + CreateIt course. It was the only way to contribute a smaller amount and get even a little something back. And there were no "full access for 1 year" gimmicks this time, you pay for it and it's yours forever.

I hope, if enough people do the same, that the message that will come across is the correct one: there's untapped potential in the EXISTING community to help LC financially. NOW is not THEN. If it was tried before and it failed, it was tried wrongly. This summer's offer is a chance for us to show HQ what they've been doing wrong. No rentals. No $999 entry points. No experiments. Get 10x more people involved as paying customers. Even if they pay 1/10th of the current cost, LC has still benefited.

[javea71]

One suggestion for the forums that comes to mind is a prominently placed "Showcase" or "Spotlight" topic (maybe underneath Announcements?)where users can post their wip or finished projects to show to the community / get feedback. The mods could also use it for curating a "best of" or central focal point for these types of submissions that are scattered around the many topics. Yes I know livecode has a stack repository elsewhere but that is a singular experience and this would be a community one. Factor in that the initial evaluation of livecode most probably includes a look at the forums and it makes sense for there to be an obvious place to check out what is being made.

I don't know who to specifically contact about the website overhaul but here are two examples that I think showcase some ways in which you can cleanly and clearly express a product idea and display it's functionality with the friction for getting started and accessing learning resources being minimal.

https://www.weld.io/

https://angular.io/

[MaxV]

Just to give the idea of the opportunities lost, I have friends working at this company http://www.leonardocompany.com/en/home , it's billion of euro company in software.
They nedded to develop an app working with mobilephone and computers at the same time, they needed just on source for al platform, so I proposed livecode. They liked livecode, but nobody knows it; so they can't use it.
There is nothing regarding specs, certifications or else, just they need people must know it.

[dave.kilroy]

That IS a shame - I've been in a similar situation (with a part of government rather than a private company) - I never knew the exact details why LiveCode lost out but think there were three factors: the decision-maker and his team were Microsoft people, he discovered that you could write Xamarin in Visual Studio, nobody in his team was proficient with LiveCode and he didn't want to use contractors. Also he raised the issue of LiveCode's price, but I think that was just an after-thought.

Just to give the idea of the opportunities lost, I have friends working at this company http://www.leonardocompany.com/en/home , it's billion of euro company in software.
They nedded to develop an app working with mobilephone and computers at the same time, they needed just on source for al platform, so I proposed livecode. They liked livecode, but nobody knows it; so they can't use it.
There is nothing regarding specs, certifications or else, just they need people must know it.

[FourthWorld]

Study the percentages in the Ratings column.
http://www.tiobe.com/tiobe_index

Then let's discuss ways we can create together the world we want to work in.

[javea71]

Study the percentages in the Ratings column.
http://www.tiobe.com/tiobe_index

Then let's discuss ways we can create together the world we want to work in.

A world where distributed (network) databases become more and more prevalent as a primary means for distributing data would be nice. Maybe in 5-10 years. Until then a livecode that truly finds it's place in the top 10 of that index will do

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpMTgZESNM4

This thread has been very insightful, when I have something tangible to contribute to the language moving forward I'll be back. Time to raid the LC dictionary.....

[mwieder]

MaxV, Dave Kilroy-

Yeah, I've been in similar situations. And add to that the lack of integration with other tools (version control, etc).
I no longer even try to bring up LiveCode for discussion at work. It's just been a losing cause too many times for me.

[AxWald]

Hi,

Study the percentages in the Ratings column.
http://www.tiobe.com/tiobe_index
Then let's discuss ways we can create together the world we want to work in.

A first step would be to check the way tiobe works:

Basically the calculation comes down to counting hits for the search query

Code: Select all

+"<language> programming"

I judge the results of tiobe by this most complex and sophisticated algorithm - but maybe just a slight change to the current forum page headers:

Code: Select all

<meta name="keywords" content="" />
<meta name="description" content="" />

would already help a bit?


Something other:

There are two communities.
Many of the more experienced LC users don't use the forums, they use the list at
[...]. Livecode employees are more likely to be seen on the list than here on the forums.

For sure, these aren't counted at tiobe too, nor are they visible for coders judging a potential new tool by the forums.
Btw., the list is funny to read sometimes. From the thread(?) Richard mentions above:

My impression is that this is different now from the past. I recall loads of questions from beginners a couple years ago. I don't follow the forums (maybe I should check them out) so I was unaware that beginner questions have now migrated there. My mistake.

Yep, everything was different in the past. Back then, when men were real men, women were real women, and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.
I remember to have heard of "mailing lists" back then - but this was, too, the time when the Usenet became widely available, and everybody and its Mac was happy not to have to read these dreaded quote orgies anymore - comp.sys.mac.hypercard.*, MacSOUP etc. anyone?
Must have been in the late 80's/ early 90's ;-)

Maybe someone could give these guys an update, and kindly ask them to join the community of 2016? I was very tempted to do so myself, but I couldn't bring myself to write to them of the new times - I have, when reading there, a picture before my eyes like Sid of userfriendly.org, of nice, venerable veterans with long beards, cobwebs between them & keyboard, still discussing the assets and drawbacks of the SE and the Plus ...

But their hiding in their cosy seclusion actually hurts LiveCode, IMHO.


At last:

I no longer even try to bring up LiveCode for discussion at work. It's just been a losing cause too many times for me.

*signing*

What we have at the moment is, IMHO, disastrous:

• Web pages that showcase LC as just another bigmouthed toy to make apps for iGadgets only
• two "stable" versions 8.* that can be considered open beta at best, and a bunch of new updates, bugfixes, RC and DPs every other day
• the only half ways stable versions (late 6 & maybe one of the 7) marked as "obsolete"
• the obvious will of RunRev not to provide a stable working tool for production, but always to chase the flavor of the month - features instead of bug fixes, and Mobile & Apple always first, and anything else nearly forgotten
• and a constant spam in the mailbox of "buy this, buy that, before it's too late!!!"

This sounds harsh, I know. But this is an impression you can easily get of LiveCode.

Conclusion:
Wouldn't there be the community edition, I'd run screaming - there's nothing RunRev offers me that would make sense to me: $699 per year (soon coming: $999) with a revenue limit (do they want my yearly tax data, really?), and not even a working, supported production version available?
And I don't need no fragglin' courses nor webinars, a working, complete language reference would already do ...

Enough for one post. Thx for reading, and have fun!

[jacque]

Maybe someone could give these guys an update, and kindly ask them to join the community of 2016? I was very tempted to do so myself, but I couldn't bring myself to write to them of the new times - I have, when reading there, a picture before my eyes like Sid of userfriendly.org, of nice, venerable veterans with long beards, cobwebs between them & keyboard, still discussing the assets and drawbacks of the SE and the Plus ...

Not all of us venerable old users prefer the mailing list just because we're ancient and unwilling to change. I myself dislike forums because they are time sinks that require far too much clicking and waiting in order to read them. All that back and forth between pages is, frankly, irritating and unproductive. A mailing list delivers easily scannable content directly, without any effort; it becomes part of my daily email and once fetched -- automatically -- I can read it without an internet connection (which I very often do, from my tablet or phone.)

I do not go to this forum regularly. Instead, I subscribe to the very handy RSS feed which delivers the new content to me daily in email. If I see something I want to respond to, I click the link in the email and it takes me to the right place where I can immediately enter a reply. Without that email feed you wouldn't see me here. In fact, I did not read the forums for some years simply because it was too time-consuming and tedious to mess with.

Another huge advantage to receiving the RSS feed is that all posted scripts are written out in their entirety and can be easily read. In the forums you are forced to read only a very few lines lines at a time and the structure of the script is lost unless you copy it into a script editor so you can format it and see how it looks. More lost time, not worth the effort.

Perhaps the reason most of the pros are on the mailing list isn't because they are old fashioned and hardened in their ways, but because they are just too busy to mess around with all the tinkering required to read messages in a forum.

To recap:

Reading messages in a forum requires many clicks and much waiting on the server to navigate between threads.
Forum participation requires the user to seek out information rather than having it come to them automatically.
Posted scripts cannot be easily scanned nor their structure discerned.
Replying requires waiting for the server to respond through three different web pages.
New messages can't be quickly scanned as a list; every topic has to be clicked on individually.
Navigation can be slow depending on the internet connection.
Messages cannot be read or replied to offline.

[SparkOut]

@jacque - I find the forums much easier to navigate and digest than the lists. I read it mostly on my Android phone, the unread messages list is simple to scan. It's far easier to find a topic that you know was covered before. I think similarly about the lists as you do about the forums, far too much time wasted for me there. <Goose and gander / meat and poison / agree to differ /any other clichéd metaphor you like here.>

[dunbarx]

Me, too.

i suppose it is just a matter of taste, but the Nabble list of threads for the use-list is not nearly as accessible for me as the forum layout. I get the part about additional clicking, but the organization trumps that. And I am fond of the separate quote and code sections that help set apart comments from those special text entries.

Craig

[FourthWorld]

i suppose it is just a matter of taste...

I see all the things Jacque does, but the only difference is that I like most of them. Offline writing would be nice, but I've been working in web forums and social media sites for so long that if I'm writing something important I have a habit of first writing it in a local text editor.

But I also like email lists. And I miss Usenet. But we now have an IRC channel for real OGs, and several social media sites, in addition to the list and several forums. There's a discussion venue option available for every taste.