Why is LiveCode not recognized more as an app developer language?

[FourthWorld]

The good news is that LC Ltd has apparently hired someone for social media outreach, a good step in the right direction.

I sincerely hope so, and I would like to wish Radhamanalan the very best in his new job.

The LC Twitter account has been very active since that hire. He seems to be off to a good start.

[Francesco77]

I would love it if there was a completely free version without export options.

Many potential users are pupils, students or small individual developers who first need to learn what to do with LiveCode in the first place.

I see that tools like "Construct" or "GameMaker" are downloaded and used by very many young people.

Even "Unity" can be used for free by small and micro developers and gets hundreds of thousands of users this way.

I have seen several tools over the decades that first became significantly more expensive and then were removed from the market altogether.

Before it's clear that this won't happen with LC, many people simply don't have much desire to invest a lot of money in it.

[stam]

I would love it if there was a completely free version without export options.
Many potential users are pupils, students or small individual developers who first need to learn what to do with LiveCode in the first place.

I see that tools like "Construct" or "GameMaker" are downloaded and used by very many young people.
Even "Unity" can be used for free by small and micro developers and gets hundreds of thousands of users this way.

I have seen several tools over the decades that first became significantly more expensive and then were removed from the market altogether.
Before it's clear that this won't happen with LC, many people simply don't have much desire to invest a lot of money in it.

You can use the previous openSource versions to learn basics - these are completely free. Search the forum for download links.

However, consider:
- if Unity, Construct or GameMaker is what suits your needs best, then LiveCode is probably not a good fit.
LC is a good all-purpose app building platform and very good for many things, but not for high-end game building.

- Unity and similar are not popular because they're free - they're free because they're popular. They are effectively niche products in a (relatively) lucrative market and use popular languages such as C# or Lua.

- Unity and similar afford industry support because they fill these niches well and use languages and workflows already familiar to most developers. It is obviously not financially viable for LC to offer free products and still remain in a position to invest in the platform at this point in time - otherwise they would have continued with the openSource initiative.
I have issues with the way dropping opensource was sprung on the users, but nevertheless think this was the right move, judging by the scope and rate of developments coming out now.

- the idea that teaching students completely for free will help spread the popularity of LC is a fine and noble one - but one that may yield benefit for the company in 10-15 years from now, and there is (i'm guessing) a more immediate need for the company to invest in their own platform in the immediate future.

- If the intent is to learn, then why not pay the price of 2 cappuccinos a month to get a limited version for learning?
Given the quality of the product and the continuous investment in their infrastructure i think this is a fair price... it's not a prohibitive cost (well, you may have to buy 2 fewer cappuccinos a month i guess )

- LC is not a giant in the area but they have demonstrated staying power.

- Ultimately it's about increasing LC's userbase.
If 'free' was really going to do it, we would have seen this effect after several years of offering an opensource licence.
Clearly it didn't.
So the other logical choice is to offer a better product - which requires investment.

S.

[Markm49uk]

I see that tools like "Construct" or "GameMaker" are downloaded and used by very many young people.

I’ll tell you what the kids are developing with….Roblox Studio. They want to make Roblox games and that tool is developing quickly into one of the leading programming tools for those interested in learning how to program. It is an absolutely massive market.

https://www.roblox.com/create

How do you compete with that ?

[richmond62]

Well, how about a toy robot that can be programmed with LiveCode via Bluetooth?

[stam]

The point being that Roblox is a free tool on their phone dressed up in pretty colours.
Not even remotely as capable as LC - but then again that's not the point... for the kids Roblox is more fun that LC can ever be as the attention span and the outputs are age-matched.

But instead of competing with stuff like Roblox why not position LC as the the more 'adult' version so kids can transition to something that is actually useful

[Markm49uk]

The point being that Roblox is a free tool on their phone dressed up in pretty colours.
Not even remotely as capable as LC - but then again that's not the point... for the kids Roblox is more fun that LC can ever be as the attention span and the outputs are age-matched.

But instead of competing with stuff like Roblox why not position LC as the the more 'adult' version so kids can transition to something that is actually useful

Sorry I disagree somewhat. Roblox is not only for kids - most of the apps that are developed are by professional developers. Kids play the games, get interested in programming their own and the circle is complete. Just look on YouTube - it is full of Roblox development tutorials.

LC need more social media presence, need to create some modern looking apps and show how to build them on YouTube etc. if you search for LiveCode many of the videos are ancient (11 years old in some cases).

My eldest son is studying a computer science major at Uni in the UK. By some margin the language being taught now is Python, a little C and C++ but nowhere near as much as Python.

I’ve tried to get him interested in LC and Xojo and he just refuses to even engage with them - it’s a difficult barrier to break down.

[richmond62]

videos are ancient (11 years old in some cases)

God help us all; the thought that something, because it is 11 years old, might be no use.

he just refuses to even engage with them

I don't know what 'engage' means in this context, but it is plain narrow-minded if one
refuses to spend half an hour looking at something.

And, when I went to University, the concept of 'University' did not mean learning more and more about
something to the exclusion of all else.

[stam]

Sorry I disagree somewhat. Roblox is not only for kids - most of the apps that are developed are by professional developers. Kids play the games, get interested in programming their own and the circle is complete.

Thanks for correcting me - but it's not a general purpose IDE - it's games and 'experiences' as far as i can tell (useful summary in The Verge: https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/7/22457 ... me-app-faq). it's well geared for multimedia/3D /gaming but not for 'normal' apps. Professional devs work on this because Roblox very cleverly have a monetisation scheme which effectively lets them take money of the kiddos wanting to play games...

As to the 'completion of the circle' - having looked at Luau (the scripting language used) I can imagine moving to LiveCodeScript would be a massive upgrade... but the problem is a) there is no global awareness of the LiveCode language and more importantly b) this is not taught - neither in universities or online courses. Have a look at Udemy for example and see how many courses there are for livecode. Hint: there are 2 which are essentially 1 - the other is a cut-down version of the first and both are out of date and incomplete - you buy the course having seen it's curriculum and the entire last section is missing - and the author is completely incommunicado. It's the same or worse on all online tutorial sites. This is effectively actively doing the opposite of advertising the product...

videos are ancient (11 years old in some cases)

God help us all; the thought that something, because it is 11 years old, might be no use.

11 years is an eternity in the computer industry. No company should rely on 11 year old videos, even if still valid (which they may well be not...).
Even if it's a great video, the aesthetics expected of top tier software (which effectively LC has positioned itself in with the new pricing scheme) are just not there - these really need to be re-done professionally and there really out to be a continuous trickle of new videos (even if they are re-hashing older videos).

[richmond62]

I have just a had a look at the Roblox website and:

1. Handles 3D pretty well.

2. Can be used to design immersive computer games pretty well.

3. Can it design something that is NOT a game?

"Make Anything You Can Imagine"

Let's see what the 'Richmond Imagination' can come up with . . . Oh, Yes (well it was imaginative 12 years ago):

A system for people to digitise historic Indic languages without having to either use 'fudgy' solutions where the digitisation
does not resemble the original texts, or a 'hunt-and-peck' system to select from vast lexicons of conjunct consonants.

https://richmondmathewson.owlstown.net/projects

[richmond62]

these really need to be re-done professionally and there really out to be a continuous trickle of new videos

Well, we all know who should be providing those videos; but they don't seem to be.

Certainly, I cannot see any one else having an urge to provide top-notch, slap-bang uptodate videos about LiveCode
now there is no free version available.

[stam]

I’ve tried to get him interested in LC and Xojo and he just refuses to even engage with them - it’s a difficult barrier to break down.

I suspect to an extent it's because his target is not app production but coding - and truth be said other languages all do have an elegance to the code.
The verbosity of LiveCodeScript can put newcomers off a bit it think, when you compare it to the conciseness of other languages.

But nothing comes close to producing an from start to finish in LiveCode - and after using LC for while you really appreciate the elegance and conveniences the language provides...

I wonder if creating a game-creating studio app powered with LiveCodeScipt might not be a better hook to get youngsters interested...

S.

[richmond62]

I wonder if creating a game-creating studio app powered with LiveCodeScipt might not be a better hook to get youngsters interested...

Why do I have a feeling that not all youngsters are so superficial that they need game-creation to get them interested in computer programming?

This is just pandering to the lowest common denominator: it is not engendering dedicated computer programmers.

Also, you'd be hard put to make "a game-creating studio app" with LiveCode given that any 3D elements would have to be hand-coded
from the bottom up.

[stam]

I wonder if creating a game-creating studio app powered with LiveCodeScipt might not be a better hook to get youngsters interested...

Why do I have a feeling that not all youngsters are so superficial that they need game-creation to get them interested in computer programming?

This is just pandering to the lowest common denominator: it is not engendering dedicated computer programmers.

Not all youngsters, but most are interested in games; and i would not necessarily class this as "superficial".
Games are exciting and being offered a way to create one is exciting.
I mean there can't be many teenagers that want to create a sanskrit word processor

[richmond62]

LiveCode is an app developer language, and it is NOT a 3D game developer studio.

But, at the same time, I do not think Roblox is an app developer language (even if it contains a language),
but it is a 3D game developer studio, ONLY.

The top ' Studio' here is accurate:
-

-
The 'Anything' is nothing short of a lie.