LiveCode Forums.

I agree completely. LC is a fantastic environment, but seems to be a small shop (one programmer??) and I'm beginning to have serious doubts about their viability. Trying to move all platforms along simultaneously is impossible, and the mobile platforms (where all the future potential of this IDE lies) are falling behind. Hire some more programmers to work on iOS and Android, lower the cost of the developer program (more will join) and stop looking for other ways to generate much needed revenue (Printed manuals when you have a nice searchable dictionary in the IDE? Seriously? I hope they didn't print too many of those, they'll be giving them away soon enough).

CALL-151 wrote:I agree completely. LC is a fantastic environment, but seems to be a small shop (one programmer??) and I'm beginning to have serious doubts about their viability. Trying to move all platforms along simultaneously is impossible, and the mobile platforms (where all the future potential of this IDE lies) are falling behind. Hire some more programmers to work on iOS and Android, lower the cost of the developer program (more will join) and stop looking for other ways to generate much needed revenue (Printed manuals when you have a nice searchable dictionary in the IDE? Seriously? I hope they didn't print too many of those, they'll be giving them away soon enough).

I believe any printed option is done with one of the modern on-demand services for the reasons you mentioned, so there's no inventory to manage at all.

LiveCode's platform coverage is indeed ambitious, but it's hardly a one-person shop.

In fact, many years ago when the engine was owned by MetaCard Corp it wasn't even a one-person shop. Only when it first started in '92, the engine was available for Unix systems exclusively and was the work of one person, Dr. Scott Raney. But by the time he began the ports to Windows and then Mac OS ('96 and '98 respectively) he had at least two assistants working with him.

Today RunRev's engineering staff is much larger. I don't know the exact number, but it's increased dramatically over the last year and when I spoke with Kevin last week he mentioned that he'll be hiring a few more before the year is out.

With the surge of interest in the mobile space, LiveCode's sales are very much up, and among their investors are such notables as Mike Markkula, who helped get Apple started with funding.

Taking those factors into account, and the thousands of companies that depend on LiveCode technologies, I'm not concerned about their viability. Sure, I'd like to see some of my pet feature requests implemented even faster, but all in all I have to say they're getting good work out of their growing staff, and revenue looks solid enough to support continued growth for the foreseeable future.

Thanks for the reassuring clarification. Still, I wouldn't characterize keeping up with native features of mobile platforms and legitimate performance issues as "pet feature requests"

CALL-151 wrote:Thanks for the reassuring clarification. Still, I wouldn't characterize keeping up with native features of mobile platforms and legitimate performance issues as "pet feature requests"

Neither would I. I used that phrase only in reference to my own requests.

I want to speak for the silent majority of people who could care less about game development. There are and will always be better gaming platforms. Runrev, the company MUST focus on making Livecode robust and stable first and foremost.

ooper wrote:I want to speak for the silent majority of people who could care less about game development. There are and will always be better gaming platforms. Runrev, the company MUST focus on making Livecode robust and stable first and foremost.

I'm not certain that's the majority of people. Speaking strictly for my own little software company, we're all about iOS because that's where the MONEY is, in terms of selling applications. But RunRev does surveys and I'm sure they know what the majority actually is. It would be interesting to know. Maybe you're right and I'm wrong. I dunno.