Keeping one's head below the top of the trench.

richmond62 · Post by **richmond62** » Sun May 30, 2021 8:24 pm

https://sphero.com/blogs/news/types-of- ... fFGb6PM%3D

Nope, No mention . . . but, Hey, why should I be surprised? Livecode (the company) has been backing itself into a corner
of its own making for a long time now . . .

. . . no takers (so far) for my Summer LiveCode course: "What is LiveCode?", "The children need to learn C++, C#, Python, Java nowadays." [That, by the way, is a "polite translation" of one father, where he did, actually, use the Bulgarian equivalent of WTF.]

Why do I even bother to mention this as all I will get is the usual sententious repost by the Ombudsman and . . . utter silence and . . .
no action from the company I donated money to (I must be stupid) to keep them afloat during the exigencies of the Covid 'thang' in Scotland . . .

LiveCode SHOULD BE the number 1 go-for-it training language for children of all ages . . . IFF . . . BUT it WILL NOT HAPPEN because by now we all know . . .

richmond62 · Post by **richmond62** » Mon May 31, 2021 2:42 pm

Just to "ram the point home" I woud like to point out that over the last 7 years I have managed to get some
kids to come along to LiveCode classes.

About 50% of those kids have gone to the Maths High School here (Plovdiv, Bulgaria) where they have started studying programming
with either C++ or C# (a needlessly steep learning curve in my opinion). Every single one of them has told me that they were able to race
ahead of the other kids because, having done a short introductory course with LiveCode they have found C++ or C# considerably easier
to get started with than those children who have either had no prior programming experience or just something with drag-n-drop block coding.

bogs · Post by **bogs** » Mon May 31, 2021 2:57 pm

richmond62 wrote: ↑
Sun May 30, 2021 8:24 pm
Why do I even bother to mention this as all I will get is the usual sententious repost by the Ombudsman and . . . utter silence and . .

richmond62 wrote: ↑
Mon May 31, 2021 2:42 pm
Just to "ram the point home"

Dunno what the "usual sententious repost by the Ombudsman" is referencing, and the utter silence (on my part) is because I'm not sure I get the point your ramming home.

richmond62 · Post by **richmond62** » Mon May 31, 2021 5:15 pm

The point, as far as there is a point, is that LiveCode is an excellent entry programming language
which almost never shows up on lists of the "5 best starter programming languages" or
"5 best programming languages to get your children hooked."

bogs · Post by **bogs** » Mon May 31, 2021 5:34 pm

There are lots of languages that fit that criteria, including a million versions of basic, pascal, etc.

richmond62 · Post by **richmond62** » Mon May 31, 2021 6:10 pm

But, were LiveCode to make a concerted effort to push its product in educational circles
it could dig itswlf out of the hole (of all sorts: uptake, financial, and so on) it is currently in.

bogs · Post by **bogs** » Mon May 31, 2021 6:14 pm

Only wherein said circles would adopt it, or are you suggesting Lc should hire a lot of guys named "Sal" and "Guido" to go visit above mentioned institutions and politely suggest said educators should adopt or something unpleasant may happen?

If I recollect correctly, you yourself have mentioned talking to other educators with no success in persuading them to pick up the language as a teaching aid.

richmond62 · Post by **richmond62** » Mon May 31, 2021 7:51 pm

"If I recollect correctly, you yourself have mentioned talking to other educators with no success in persuading them to pick up the language as a teaching aid."

Indeed: in Bulgaria.

The reason for this is that, as a post-communist state, the place still suffers from almost paranoid central control, and schools
cannot make any curricular decisions independently. There are no educational authorities on a county level, a town level or in any other
outwith the government department of Education.

richmond62 · Post by **richmond62** » Tue Jun 01, 2021 8:19 am

Well, bogs,

"usual sententious repost by the Ombudsman"

1. ask yourself who the Ombudsman is.

2. Look at the Ombudsman's reply to any sort of criticism levelled at LiveCode.

bogs · Post by **bogs** » Tue Jun 01, 2021 9:11 am

I had looked it up, since I was unfamiliar with the word, which isn't surprising I guess not being of Swedish or New Zealand descent...

Merriam-Webster wrote: Definition of ombudsman 1 : a government official (as in Sweden or New Zealand) appointed to receive and investigate complaints made by individuals against abuses or capricious acts of public officials

The town's ombudsman said he would look into charges of corruption.

...however, that and the fact that Lc as a company isn't a government aside, I don't get how they are guilty of abuses or capricious acts. I haven't seen a lot of evidence that as a company, they are freakish, unsteady, fanciful, whimsical, fitful, crotchety, uncertain impulsive or unpredictable.

You certainly can and do use fancy words, I just am not sure how they are being applied in this case.

richmond62 · Post by **richmond62** » Tue Jun 01, 2021 11:05 am

they are guilty of abuses or capricious acts. I haven't seen a lot of evidence that as a company, they are freakish, unsteady, fanciful, whimsical, fitful, crotchety, uncertain impulsive or unpredictable.

No, I don't think they are either.

But they might have some fixed ideas about pushing LC a and educational platform.

The Ombudsman was described by himself as the "LiveCode Ombudsman'.

bogs · Post by **bogs** » Tue Jun 01, 2021 11:56 am

richmond62 wrote: ↑
Tue Jun 01, 2021 11:05 am
The Ombudsman was described by himself as the "LiveCode Ombudsman'.

Another search later, do you mean Richard? In a post from a year before I even got to the party?? I can see how I might have even guessed that hahahaha.

M'kay, so, you don't want Richard to post, you make a statement that is hard to follow, and expect utter silence. Little wonder I think.

From a person who is most definitely not an ombudsman, I'll state again what I said earlier. There are a LOT of languages not mentioned in your linked article that I think are better/easier/faster to learn { initially, anyway } than the languages in it, a few of which *used to be* educational programming "GO TO" languages, but have long since been replaced. <cough> Delphi <cough> Basic <cough>LISP<cough> Fortran</cough> </cough></cough></cough> just to cough up more than a few.

There are more than a few languages better for general purpose programming I'm sure as well, but C++ isn't likely to be replaced by any of those on any list, and while it certainly requires a steeper learning curve initially, doing really hard things later on takes less of a strain on you than it would in Lc (and some things are nigh on close to impossible for Lc to do, such as write your own OS that can boot from bare metal, which is certainly possible to do in C / C++, not only possible in fact, relatively simple).

Lc is hardly unique with respect to not being on lists, for instance, I didn't see Rebol / RED on that list, no assembly, no LUA, HECK, not even VISUAL BASIC is on that list. I'm pretty sure your not going to say that MS doesn't have any idea how to market their products effectively, are you?

The article in the link is a fairly short article, it is making a point, the references to languages look like examples, it most certainly is not a definitive list of all programming languages, or even the best language(s) { "best" being a highly subjective / relative standard, btw }.

You want to see Lc mentioned? Try going to Wikipedia instead.

FourthWorld · Post by **FourthWorld** » Tue Jun 01, 2021 6:08 pm

bogs wrote: ↑
Tue Jun 01, 2021 11:56 am
M'kay, so, you don't want Richard to post, you make a statement that is hard to follow, and expect utter silence. Little wonder I think.

If Richmond is trolling for my attention he can just send me a note. I'm not hard to reach.

If not, there's no point to him distracting from his own thread by introducing ad hominem against someone whose opinions differ from his.

His latest iteration here is nothing many haven't already replied to many times, mostly with suggestions he send his business planning ideas to the only people who can act on them, at the company.

His choice to not send company-actionable suggestions to the company tells me all I need to know. I generally ignore most of what he writes, having already replied many times before to no effect.

Carry on...

stam · Post by **stam** » Wed Jun 02, 2021 12:50 am

Odd posts above notwithstanding, it does raise the interesting question of how to increase LC's exposure. Tough nut to crack but can't be impossible surely? I know i've mentioned LC a few times on forums of competing software and know i've drummed up a bit of interest. However the majority of established devs trying it i think find it too different and perhaps don't quite 'get it' because it does require quite a change in thinking process which takes time and that's a valuable resource not easily spent...

So what i'd like to see is more of the stuff that actually brings people in: Evangelists spreading the word outside of this forum, tons more YouTube videos etc, fund quality tutorials on Udemy etc, and importantly have lots of exposure of quality apps created with LiveCode.

Have a look at Qt's website and their use-cases at https://www.qt.io/why-qt and in fact all of their website. LC could really do with something like that. Of course this all needs serious money which is perhaps the real issue here and not easily solvable without industry funding (user funding will never be enough i don't think...). But that's just my shortsighted view as a casual user, not really understanding the corporate realities...

capellan · Post by **capellan** » Wed Jun 02, 2021 3:23 am

Re: Keeping one's head below the top of the trench.