Another way of assessing LiveCode

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richmond62
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Re: Another way of assessing LiveCode

Post by richmond62 » Wed Apr 25, 2018 5:35 pm

Do not read me wrongly: I am NOT attempting to "trash" SuperCard.

What I am doing is trying to see where LiveCode is doing well,
and where it isn't; in both cases ONLY from the point of view of
new, young learners, with special reference as to how quickly
they can become self-propelled.

I am, possibly, examining 2 things which could be mutually contradictory:

1. Claims like this:
claims.png

2. Environments that allow text-based programming, not just drag-N-drop of multi-media elements.

If you want, you can see this as a sort of extension to my Masters degree stuff on Agent-led interfaces for software creation - in fact a read through of the first section of that would clarify things a lot:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/aknlqyovmke61 ... f.zip?dl=0

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Re: Another way of assessing LiveCode

Post by richmond62 » Wed Apr 25, 2018 6:26 pm

SuperCard tool palette:
SCardTools.png

The initial focus is on objects which can be dragged onto the work surface.

HyperNext
tool palette:
HNextTools.png

A similar emphasis on objects which can be dragged onto the work surface.

HyperStudio tools palette:
HStudioTools.png
HStudioTools.png (29.49 KiB) Viewed 7950 times
No objects to be seen.

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Re: Another way of assessing LiveCode

Post by richmond62 » Wed Apr 25, 2018 6:36 pm

HyperStudio handles objects in a different way,
offering them in a toolbar along the top of a stack window:
HStudioStart.png
I have removed the centre of the start card image as I am not focussing on that just now.

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Re: Another way of assessing LiveCode

Post by FourthWorld » Wed Apr 25, 2018 6:44 pm

Klaus wrote:
Wed Apr 25, 2018 4:58 pm
I also LOVED SuperEdit and I really never used the "Runtime Editor" in my (few) SC years!
You and I are like twin sons of different mothers. :)

Given SuperEdit for layout, I loved that SuperCard's Runtime Editor had three modes: full, palette, and menu. Being exclusively Mac, where there's only one menu bar, I switched to menu as soon as I discovered that option, leaving most of the menu bar for my own app's menus while still providing access to the RTE things I needed.
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Re: Another way of assessing LiveCode

Post by richmond62 » Wed Apr 25, 2018 7:00 pm

leaving most of the menu bar for my own app's menus
Of course your comments are made from the position of a well-established and
highly competent xTalk programmer and not from someone like 9 year old Ivan
just starting out in the world.

Having said that (had my 'squish'), I have often wondered about a dockable
tool bar
where, apart from one or two bog-basic things, the end-user can add
or remove whatever tools s/he wants.

The LiveCode 9 toolbar is vaguely dockable in the widget section.

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Re: Another way of assessing LiveCode

Post by FourthWorld » Wed Apr 25, 2018 7:20 pm

richmond62 wrote:
Wed Apr 25, 2018 7:00 pm
leaving most of the menu bar for my own app's menus
Of course your comments are made from the position of a well-established and
highly competent xTalk programmer and not from someone like 9 year old Ivan
just starting out in the world.
True, usability and learnability are not always compatible goals. Reconciling their inherent differences is the Holy Grail of software design.
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Re: Another way of assessing LiveCode

Post by bogs » Wed Apr 25, 2018 7:35 pm

You definitely brought up some memories with HyperNext, which if I remember it rightly was based on RB's scripting language. I played with it briefly back when I was using RB full time and they started swinging their IDE all over the place and changing the language.

I may have to dl the current version and see if it has made any real progress since that point.
Image

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Re: Another way of assessing LiveCode

Post by richmond62 » Wed Apr 25, 2018 7:36 pm

So: onto buttons and other objects in HyperStudio:

Choosing a button object from the top tool bar one meets an agent
that offers us a choice of button type:
HStudioBtnAgent1.png
Which is pretty cool (especially if you are a 9 year old), until the teacher points out that there is no information about what those different buttons can actually do.

Then one is presented with a series of pre-determined actions the button can perform, which is also cool until you realise that that's as far as it goes: no apparent access to scripting at all.
HStudioBtnAgent2.png

No-one is going to learn programming with HyperStudio.

AND, additionally, HyperStudio costs money ( $30 US) and is
confined to Macintosh and Windows only. If one wants a "Noddy" play kit of the type
that HyperStudio offers one can run one up in comparatively
short order in a Community version of LiveCode.
Last edited by richmond62 on Wed Apr 25, 2018 7:53 pm, edited 3 times in total.

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Re: Another way of assessing LiveCode

Post by FourthWorld » Wed Apr 25, 2018 7:40 pm

richmond62 wrote:
Wed Apr 25, 2018 7:36 pm
No-one is going to learn programming with HyperStudio.
What do you think of Scratch?
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Re: Another way of assessing LiveCode

Post by richmond62 » Wed Apr 25, 2018 7:41 pm

You definitely brought up some memories with HyperNext
I had a correspondence with Malkolm [sic], the developer of HyperNext a few years ago when he was threatening to produce a Linux version; however he abandoned that idea, which seems a pity; although how he finances himself is anybody's guess.

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Re: Another way of assessing LiveCode

Post by richmond62 » Wed Apr 25, 2018 7:47 pm

I think that Scratch belongs to a different universe to SuperCard, LiveCode, HyperNext and so on.

I have tried it with children and quickly reverted to Turtle Graphics insofar as I felt that with Turtle Graphics I could teach the same principles without the children being distracted away from learning programming by the LEGO brick world of Scratch :

LEGO is a fantastic tool (I have a plastic dustbin of the stuff and often play with it to unwind after a stressful week), but it it still a system of pre-made forms. What LEGO is not is piles of raw materials, a cement mixer, an iron foundry and so on.

This would seem to be the main difference between Scratch (and I mean "pure Scratch , not the hybrid versions that attempt to seduce children from Scratch to Python) and environments like LiveCode.
Last edited by richmond62 on Wed Apr 25, 2018 7:55 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Another way of assessing LiveCode

Post by bogs » Wed Apr 25, 2018 7:53 pm

richmond62 wrote:
Wed Apr 25, 2018 7:41 pm
You definitely brought up some memories with HyperNext
I had a correspondence with Malkolm [sic], the developer of HyperNext a few years ago when he was threatening to produce a Linux version; however he abandoned that idea, which seems a pity; although how he finances himself is anybody's guess.
Yah, I can see from his page that he never got much farther with it in all the years since I last looked at it, which is kind of a pity. I'll install his last efforts in it and take a look at it again, thank you again for bringing it up, fond memories of a simpler time for me :D
Image

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Re: Another way of assessing LiveCode

Post by FourthWorld » Wed Apr 25, 2018 7:55 pm

richmond62 wrote:
Wed Apr 25, 2018 7:47 pm
I think that Scratch belongs to a different universe to SuperCard, LiveCode, HyperNext and so on.

I have tried it with children and quickly reverted to Turtle Graphics insofar as I felt that with Turtle Graphics...
Have you used Jim Hurley's Turtle Graphics for LiveCode?
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Re: Another way of assessing LiveCode

Post by richmond62 » Wed Apr 25, 2018 8:04 pm

Poking around in SuperEdit I found a scriptEditor (which the kids did not!):
SEditScript1.png
SEditScript2.png
after a bit of fiddling around I managed to get the script readable:
SEditScript3.png

although there did not seem to be any option for colour-coding such as the LiveCode scriptEditor offers.

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Re: Another way of assessing LiveCode

Post by richmond62 » Wed Apr 25, 2018 8:13 pm

I'll install his last efforts in it and take a look at it again
I know that the HyperNext chap is a "one-man band"
and that has to be admired: but this made me feel a bit wobbly:
feelingWobbly.png

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