Where are the newbies?

[dunbarx]

I most enjoy answering structural or coding questions, and these come almost exclusively from new or intermediate users.

These seem to have dried up over the last year or two. CAsba, was the last. The issues these days involve aspects of LC that I never touch, Mobile, Web, HTML5, Widgets, passing pointers, android deployment, local IP address recognition. All indicate fairly advanced issues.

The forum and use-list are still active, so that is a good thing, but either everyone has moved up and on to rather specific topics, or there are very few new users. It is that last that worries me far more than that I can no longer help someone by making a quick test stack and advising what they need, or did wrong.

Anyone see what I mean?

Craig

[richmond62]

No Free version of LiveCode has effectively killed all that off.

[stam]

Anyone see what I mean?

You're probably not wrong, but ultimately only LC knows.
I do see some 'new' names but probably long term users who are now very experienced and rarely get involved with the forums.

If there are indeed new users it may be that they are just not posting; I know for a fact that forums of other IDEs/languages can be quite intolerant of what is perceived a 'newbie' question that has been answered many times; and can even be quite toxic, neither of which apply to this board of course, but may still be putting off someone experimenting with the language.

As Richmond says, free was bringing in users - but sadly I don't think it was bringing in any income.
But in fairness, there aren't many developers that can't afford the starter edition - for 1 platform it is equivalent of 3 Starbucks coffee a month (in the UIK at least). But that offering will never suffice for serious developers.

Someone wanting to develop x-platform nowadays would go web or use free languages like Java, Flutter and so on. Why should they shell out top dollar for an IDE that still looks like it shipped with Windows ME and have to learn a language that is entirely different from anything they may know (it really is x-talk vs everything else)?. And new users/hobbyists would balk at the pricing structure. A big issue is that the starter editions binaries stop working when subscripting lapses - for me what would have been better would have been to visibly watermark such binaries as made with the 'learning' edition of LC.

So if I was a potential new user I'd try to understand if it's worth the non-trivial investment and I would

• search GitHub for livecode, only to find it's not listed as a language
• search google - ok some hits mainly on this site, stackOverFlow and some other personal sites. And of course the mailing list which will seem archaic and unusable to many younger developers.
• search video tutorials - there is a lot of the stuff on YouTube is now old/outdated (and looks it), there are newer videos but not sure how well these 'sell' paying top dollar for an IDE.
  A lot of what is there focuses on a tiny aspect of the Language or a particular problem to solve and doesn't constitute a tutorial for the language. Even the courses provided by LC do not do that.
  Compare that with courses in FileMaker Pro for example - a similarly commercial environment (top dollar) but you get so much more on both YouTube and places like udemy.com
• search Udemy, which does provide coherent language video courses and is generally low-cost, high-yield for learning new languages. But there is only a single LC course on Udemy, which is a now very old course by Fulvio Massini - while it's good in parts, much of this is quite outdated (it's aimed at mobile), it isn't even complete and the creator is uncontactable. Again, not a good advert for LC, just makes it look like a dead language.
• search for examples of apps built with LC - only a few have done this on this site (not a great advert) and while there are some publishing apps based on LC, there is practically never a hint of this either on their website or here (or anywhere) - so a a potential new developer all I get to see is that gawdawful LiveCodeShare site that takes 4-8 minute to load.

The obvious quick wins / low hanging fruit would be:
a) get recognised on GitHub as a language. Heck, if XOJO can do it, I really can't see why both LiveCodeScript and LiveCodeBuilder couldn't

b) motivate people to attribute their apps to LiveCode and post them visibly in places like the 'Made with LiveCode' subforum and link 'the best of' on the website for all to see

c) fix liveCodeShare - that site is grinding to halt and is quite a negative advert for what LiveCode is and can do... OK that would be a cost to the mothership, but is in dire need of being brought into this millennium.

d) if LC is in the 'spending money' mood, they could do worse than approaching one of the professional teachers on Udemy for example and striking up a mutually beneficial deal. The best course providers there keep the tutorials up-to-date, and invariably provide support for students on Discord. Many do full language tutorials in a variety of languages. Having someone like Angela Yu do a bootcamp on LC would be massive for example. Or any kind of bootcamp!

but that's my $0.02 which I've already mentioned more than once...

[richmond62]

1. The advertising is a joke.

2. The monthly subscription is awful:

Imagine a person who wants to try out the language but, also, has a day job (and, quite possibly, also a night job):

2.1. The 10-day trial will probably afford then about 15 hours if they are very lucky: no-one would ever get anywhere in 15 hours.

2.2. 10 30 days monthly thing will probably go 'bang' just as you start to get a feel for the thing.

3. A while back LC had a 3-tier pricing structure: starting with RevMedia, which, if I recall correctly was $40 a year: almost everything to learn the language, but no standalones.

4. LiveCode has, seemingly, mucked around its pricing so much, and bandied around phrases such as 'forever', that anyone following that would get a distinctly inconsistent impression ...

Remember 'DreamCard'?, remember 'RevMedia'; sometimes free, sometimes pay?

One thing I signally fail to understand is why LC did NOT keep available the last Open Source version on their websites (possibly with the standalone builder crippled) hedged around with all sorts of 'no-support' caveats.

[richmond62]

What did surprise me is how all but 1 (me ?) users of the Open Source version of LiveCode vanished almost over-night when the Open Source version was discontinued.

[stam]

2. The monthly subscription is awful

I can understand why they had to make the free stuff go away. They wanted all regular users to pay and having that around removes incentive.
I don’t begrudge them wanting a fair reimbursement of their efforts. They have regular staff to pay, who have families to feed. That won’t work if you’re just going to give it away for free…

2.1. The 10-day trial will probably afford then about 15 hours if they are very lucky: no-one would ever get anywhere in 15 hours.

Maybe a better model would be to have non-consecutive time, ie time actually used, rather than time from 1st run.
I don’t know if they are doing it, but also bundling a ton of videos normally hidden behind the paywall would be good for new users. Or even better get a professional to do a proper course as I mentioned above. Normal devs don’t have the times or talent to do this.

A while back LC had a 3-tier pricing structure: starting with RevMedia, which, if I recall correctly was $40 a year: almost everything to learn the language, but no standalones.

That was mentioned several times at the price structure change. Bottom line is doing that blocks sales as well because people just distributed links to the IDE instead of standalones.



The bottom line is that LC needs to stay afloat financially. And, as they say, there’s no such thing as a free lunch…
Arguably providing things for free for so many years is what’s driven the pricing to where it is now.

In my mind the only way to get more users in is to have serious developers looking at LC like the useful tool it is rather than a toy, which in turn means having a better presence online (GitHub, fixing liveCodeShare - and curating it - etc as above), advertise in MacWorld or similar (I’m guessing will probably be more likely to happen with products like Create, which is very much suitable for non-developers).

Not all is rosy with LC but for general use it’s much better that a lot of stuff out there. But everything from pricing to then ancient IDE and tutorials are potential obstacles in the path of any who might have a spark of interest. Hard to advertise the current IDE with its current looks…

[richmond62]

Hard to advertise the current IDE with its current looks…

I am not as anti as a lot of people seem to be about the IDE. Certainly my kiddo learners seem to find it comparatively easy.

There is, supposedly, a new IDE on the way in LC 10; but LiveCode are doing nothing to tell anyone about that!

[richmond62]

That was mentioned several times at the price structure change. Bottom line is doing that blocks sales as well because people just distributed links to the IDE instead of standalones.

There is probably a no easy way out of this one either, as pirate sites have hosted pre-Open Source versions of RR/LC, and, should there be uptake again, they will be doing the same with current versions.

[dunbarx]

I wonder what Scotland makes of this thread. I know it is read there.

I have this old, old fear that I am back in 1999, and my beloved HC is becoming marginalized...

Craig

[stam]

As a parenthesis, I'd add that the payment structure that Panorama X database uses is fairer but I guess less lucrative.
But it's always struck me as the way to go to pull people in. The bottom line is that you pre-pay for months of use, but this does not count towards months you don't use it. And can be as little as $5/month which really quite inviting, keeping in mind that if you don't use it for a few months, those don't count towards your total months.

While Mac- and desktop-only, there is a significant overlap with what LiveCode can be used for, and does data-oriented processing and display much better (as one would expect) but also includes it's own programming language as well as facility to add code written in other languages like python, php, ruby etc. I would probably compare more directly to FileMaker Pro but any way you look at it, pricing is much more user friendly.

I think this model is fairly unique (can't imagine it's popular with providers because income is less if people are sitting on a licence and not using it, but equally this is more 'pay for what you use'). Have a look here: https://www.provue.com/#pricing

[stam]

I have this old, old fear that I am back in 1999, and my beloved HC is becoming marginalized...

Sadly the diamond in the rough that is LiveCode has always lived in the margins

Finding a place for LC is a tough ask - it's not something that will be taught in computer science classes because - lets face it - by it's nature it is less performant than pretty much any 'proper' language, and is less likely to land you a job compared to being proficient in C#, C++, Swift or even JS.

The argument that LC shortens development time is a two-edge sword. Much like roadworks, there is more money to be made the longer something takes to complete. And besides, larger client companies bear corporate responsibility and will prefer to use OS-approved languages like C# and Swift and don't care if development time is longer.

Unless mainstreamed by an OS (like HC was in its hay-day), LC will never not live in the margins - the area where smaller developers and high level users creating work solutions live. With Create coming I can see a lot of the latter (high level users) taking this up and probably resulting in an increase in LC uptake. But pricing remains problematic - and a Panorama-style pricing structure as above may help uptake.
Although the profit-per-licence would be less for LC.ltd, arguably if this style of pricing helped uptake increase it may be on-par or possibly exceed income now, but that would only work if uptake did actually increase... so for me Create seems pivotal for the future...

Just my speculative $0.02...

[dunbarx]

Stam.

Do you have any confidence that LC "Create" will be vigorously marketed? And will that feature in and of itself lead new users to explore what underlies it, what we all know is a marginal language, and will those people "see" the power and beauty of that language?

Almost all of my favorite restaurants and grocery items have fallen away over my lifetime. Hydrox cookies, dead. Oreos, however, live on, and quite well. My brother says that anyone could change an Oreo into a Hydrox; just leave it out in the sun for a week. The point is that human beings are idiots.

Craig

[stam]

The point is that human beings are idiots.

Craig

No disagreement there…

As a backer I’ve seen the early version and it does seem very sexy, both in terms of looks, but also functionality, including “actions” (a bit like complementing AppleScript with Automator) and AI integration although still nascent. I’d be very surprised if it wasn’t heavily marketed, it’s a goldmine for stuff like that. I wish the LC IDE borrowed heavily from the same interface…

[dunbarx]

Stam.

I intend to make myself believe this will be a game changer, derived not from (finally, at last) a sudden appreciation of the model itself, but from a sexy new direction.

I will take that.

Craig

[DavidF.]

I probably count as one of those newbies who has gone, so I thought I might chip in. As a hobbyist programmer, I gave up on LiveCode when the pricing came in. The alternative I settled on to fill that Livecode-shaped hole was Xojo. I like their pricing. I paid (I think) £90 for single-platform. The important thing for me was that this is not a subscription: I don't have to keep paying to be able to run standalones. I do have to keep paying it each year if I want to stay up-to-date with Xojo versions. At the moment I'm a version behind, but that's fine: if I decide I'm keen enough and using it enough I'll pay another £90 to get myself up-to-date. In the meantime, I've got a fully-working version of Xojo, I can compile and run standalones forever; I'm just slightly behind the times with versions.

But I have a soft spot for LiveCode (hence occasionally checking on this forum) and if it offered the same pricing as Xojo I would be back like a shot. It felt perfect for a hobbyist like me. I always thought of it as "a programme for making other programmes" - something unique, not just another language. But part of being a hobbyist is having a kind of intermittent interest, and with a subscription there would inevitably be months when I just didn't use LiveCode all that much, and what would be the point of the subscription then? I don't have that feeling with the Xojo plan, I have periods when I work on Xojo, periods when I leave it alone.

Stam: I had a look at that Panorama X pricing, very interesting. Not something I've seen anywhere else. If LiveCode offered something like that I would take it, I think.

Of course, here I am, singing the praises of Xojo pricing - it may be great for me, I have no idea how well it works out for Xojo.

Xavvi or whatever they're going to call it would not be something that of itself would tempt me back.

cheers

David F.