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

[richmond62]

What is obvious to me, is that after my 2 week holiday, looking at the LiveCode website today (9th August) absolutely
NOTHING has changed on a fossilised website for a long, long time, and IF anyone is reading this thread it certainly does NOT
seem to be registering as, as far I understand things, accepting positive criticism is generally signalled by acting upon it.

[FourthWorld]

Personally, I have never heard or used Livecd...

And yet here you are. How did that happen?

[richmond62]

perhaps this development environment is simply not available enough?

Well, it was, until recently . . .

. . . But, you can cast your bread upon the waters, and, frankly, if very little of it comes back, you might
get a bit effed off . . .

Personally, I have never heard or used Livecd

Really? That reminds me of someone at my University, who turned up at the Chess society and asked, "What, exactly, is Chess?"

We can also assume that the creators of LiveCode simply decided not to engage in advertising

You may have hit a "sore spot" there.

[SparkOut]

Personally, I have never heard or used Livecd...

And yet here you are. How did that happen?

Because he just dug about on forums to find threads to post placeholders in that he can come back to and edit in spamlinks

[richmond62]

Because he just dug about on forums to find threads to post placeholders in that he can come back to and edit in spamlinks

Ouch.

[richmond62]

The lead programmer of this lot:

https://programista.bg/

who lives downstairs on the ground/first floor of the house where our flat it.

Told me something re LiveCode:

"You are kicking against conservative, embedded interests, and they have
a vision of what a programming language is, and the only way you are
going to get them to change is to replace them with other people."

Not very nice, but probably true. But true insofar as it refers to outsourcing
'factories': their main place consists of 2 vast rooms that are darkened with about
100 people in each room hunched over keyboards and enormous monitors doing
"stuff" for medical insurance companies in the United States: frightened the
life out of me.

However; it should always be remembered that, while there are hundreds, if not thousands of
places full of people like that, there are also, probably, just as many places where things are
a bit more human, and they are not trying to "glue" their code to other, pre-existing software.

AND, I suspect that the answer, to a very large extent lies with the requirement of a lot of
companies who hire programmers: they want people to maintain, modify and extend
software packages they already use that do not lend themselves to being modified or
extended with LiveCode-like languages.

LiveCode is fantastic for "insular" software packages, which, once made, can be
maintained, modified and extended inwith LiveCode itself.

That chap also said:

"You are giving kids a good headstart by getting them going with LiveCode as
it is much easier to get quick, visible results than the languages we use."

He also said, "What a pity we can't use LiveCode as the modular thing with each object
having its own script should make trouble-shooting very easy."

[SparkOut]

Interesting. When I was self-employed and LiveCode comprised a part of my day job, one of the most common development areas was in middleware. Customers had a "system" specifically for the business/production operation but didn't provide an easy method to interface with the "sales/CRM" or "accounts" or just provide reports or a "dashboard". This "system" of course was unmodifiable, or at best, would require masses of bespoke customisation by the original developers (not necessarily the same as the supplier) at enormous and prohibitive expense. Step in LiveCode. To some extent it can be possible to automate things and retrieve data on demand for re-presentation or updating another system. In worst case it can crunch the data churned out in rigid format from the one system and turn it into a different format rigidly required by another.

[glenn9]

'Why is LiveCode not recognized more as an app developer language?' - I think it's down to advertising.

I only discovered LC's existence through serendipity - I was keen to learn how to code but wasn't sure what language to learn - I'd heard that Python was 'easy' to learn but quickly discovered that without its own GUI it was unattractive to me.

I then looked at Scratch - decided it wasn't for me ... but.. right at the end of the Scratch book I was looking at, there was a link to LC and I've not looked back since then...

For an amateur coder with little time, I think its ideal.

Its enabled me to build several apps that I would have not been able to other languages. I guess similar to the camera adage 'the best camera is the one that you have with you, the best programming language is 'the one that you can produce meaningful apps with'!

I just wish I'd known about LC earlier!

Regards,

Glenn

[DR White]

I BELIEVE THAT LC COULD BENEFIT FROM MORE EFFECTIVE ADVERTISEMENT!

I was on youtube and the 15 SECOND XOJO advertisement popped up.

IT'S VERY EFFECTIVE!!

[stam]

These are comments that go back several years - i've seen similar postings from 2015 or earlier echoing the exact sentiments of multiple posts from the last year or so. I have commented on this a few times and occasionally been put down by other users, their argument being that because LC has existed for 20 years they clearly know how best to promote their product.

This is an understandable comment - although i would argue that the existing community has bailed LC out (i'm guessing more than once), and again this is what is happening with the new pricing structure which is clearly there to get more money out of existing users rather than attract new users (although i also understand the argument and anticipated influx of money will enable LC to modernise the product and attract new users).

I don't know if there is a way to find out, but I'm really curious as to what percentage of people who use LiveCode regularly because of previous experience with HyperCard/SuperCard/MetaCard, how many convert from other platforms or x-plat development IDEs such as RealBASIC/XOJO and how many are genuinely new devs experimenting with learning a programming language or 'amateur coders'.

My impression is that probably the 1st group is the largest, although i may be completely wrong.
But if that is the case, then it strengthens the notion that LC relies on a fixed population of x-talk developers and is ineffective in spreading the word to other users (it's a safe bet that vast swathes of developers have never heard the term 'HyperCard' or 'LiveCode' before).

None of us have the overview that LC has, but my own personal experience tallies with Glen's - serendipity seems to be a major factor in bringing new users into this fabulous platform, because it sure as **** isn't the advertising efforts from the mothership. Hell, i only accidentally found out about black Friday deals because I happened to visit the mothership's website at the time, not something i often do nowadays.

I continue to support LC through the new pricing structure, because the environment is amazing and I'd like to see it prosper. But it how can this happen without increasing awareness of the platform?

[richmond62]

what percentage of people who use LiveCode regularly because of previous experience with HyperCard/SuperCard/MetaCard

My reasons:

1. I started developing ESL software in 2001 with MetaCard and changed over
to Runtime Revolution because it had an interface that I found easier to use.

2. Hired to develop an interface in Runtime Revolution 2.0.1 for a musical education package.

3. Moved to Bulgaria and set up my ESL school in 2004 and began to make ESL software as none of the
commercial products suited my needs.

4. Started work on my Devawriter Pro about 12 years ago.

5. Works fine for me re ESL stuff for my school, Works fine as an intro-to-programming thing for teaching kids every summer,
could not change my Devawriter Pro over to another programming language/interface if my life depended on it.

6. Have no energy to invest the time in learning another programming environment to the level that I have
with Runtime Revolution / LiveCode.

I regularly get LC's mailshots under my other email name and none of it would attract me in the slightest; mainly because,
although they bang on about "easy", "cross-platform" and so on, they do not explain anything whatsoever about LiveCode itself.

[richmond62]

https://youtu.be/wdH6nRj1SRA

Xojo

1 minute, 2 seconds: Here's a project.

1 minute, 40 seconds: Programming language, Framework, "You don't have to learn everything the operating system offers you . . ."

2 minutes, 3 seconds: Integrated Development Environment (IDE) . . . Amazingly I wondered what IDE meant.

2 minutes, 34 seconds: Free to use . . . Lovely! [ c.f. RevMedia ]

If that lot can produce such a simple, easy-to-understand film, I would suppose others could as well.

[jacque]

Hell, i only accidentally found out about black Friday deals because I happened to visit the mothership's website at the time,

Did you opt out of emails? I get promotional emails all the time. A big half-price offer just ended.

[richmond62]

A big half-price offer just ended.

But these offers are preaching to the converted.

[jacque]

A big half-price offer just ended.

But these offers are preaching to the converted.

Not entirely. Remember that to download the OSS edition you had to give an email address.