What with all it's features and platforms I sometimes forget

Thomas McGrath III mcgrath3 at mac.com
Mon Dec 27 09:29:15 EST 2010


WOW. I had a great holiday and then came back to a semantic argument over fun as in easy or no effort versus fun as in enjoyable and a delight to do. 

"It's just so much easier to be good at something you enjoy doing, and it is absolutely possible to find programming fun, even when it's hard."

For me it's fun especially when it's hard. I love the challenge of coaxing an idea into reality and hitting a wall either in concept, design or execution and then struggling for a while and maybe having to ask for help and eventually coming up with a solution and finally successfully completing a project and seeing it work. This is FUN to me, it is exhilarating, it makes getting up in the morning  worth doing. I love the challenge and the reward, the struggle and the feeling of accomplishment.

My work, effective or not by the standards of someone else, has helped thousands of people who otherwise could not speak to be able to not only speak but to communicate in a meaningful way with their loved ones this holiday season and beyond.  There are systems out there that allow people to speak i.e. "I like Brownies" when they push a button and each time they push that button they will say "I like Brownies" but if they decide they don't and wan't to say "I don't like Brownies" they can't unless they painstakingly spell it out or a parent/caretaker enters it for them but this is not the same as giving them a way to truly communicate what they actually want to say, which is what I do. So I do consider my coding and the result very effective. And I have a lot of fun doing it.

-- Tom McGrath III
http://lazyriver.on-rev.com
3mcgrath at comcast.net

On Dec 27, 2010, at 6:10 AM, Richmond wrote:

> On 12/27/2010 10:06 AM, Geoff Canyon Rev wrote:
>> On Fri, Dec 24, 2010 at 12:41 AM, Richmond<richmondmathewson at gmail.com>wrote:
>>> Well; good, effective programming is rarely either EASY or FUN; and more
>>> often
>>> than not involves a lot of prolonged effort, thought, and hard work.
>>> 
>> Programming is like playing tennis. I'm sure there are professional tennis
>> players who don't enjoy playing the game. They've either grown tired of it,
>> or they simply discovered they had the knack, or fell into it somehow and
>> now they're stuck. But in general, good players like the game, or even love
>> it.
> 
> I love working with Livecode, and have done ever since day #1. But the word 'fun'
> has be come burdened with the semantics of effortless enjoyment. Programming
> can and should be pleasurable with Livecode, but effortless it is not.
> 
> To my mind, at least, half the pleasure of working with Livecode is putting
> a bit of effort into something and seeing the wonderful results of the
> combined efforts of the 'heavy chaps' in Edinburgh (without whom we
> would be lost) and our own work. If I could achieve the sort of results I do
> without any effort at all they would be virtually valueless as anybody
> could belt off whatever, whenever, and both Thee and Me would be out
> of a job!
> 
>>  It's just so much easier to be good at something you enjoy doing, and it
>> is absolutely possible to find programming fun, even when it's hard.
>> 
>> To tell would-be end-users that they can create wonderful things without a
>>> fairly serious
>>> investment of time and effort is simply disingenuous.
>>> 
>>> I disagree. Granted I have more than a few years invested, but most of the
>>> things I've created over the years have been quick and simple. LC's
>>> advantage over other languages/environments starts near infinity, and drops
>>> to zero or even negative as the size of the project grows.
> 
> I agree with you about what you say about Livecode; when I compare it with
> other languages/environments it really does beat them into a cocked hat.
> 
> However, to maximise Livecode's full potential (and, WOW! what a potential)
> does take quite a bit of effort.
> 
> While it may take more effort to achieve the same sort of things in other
> languages/environments it does not mean that doing something in Livecode
> is exactly "Easy-Peasy-Lemon-Squeezy" either.
> 
>>> At the one
>>> extreme is the fact that I can create a workable program and compile it for
>>> several platforms in five minutes or less.
> I think the word 'workable' is the one we need to focus on here. Most of us,
> even those of us fresh to Livecode, can produce something 'workable' very
> quickly indeed.
> 
> However, 'workable' is not quite the same as 'resource efficient' and so on.
>>> In the middle, I have many times
>>> prototyped something in less than an hour or two that dropped jaws.
> 
> Of course.
> 
>>> At the
>>> other extreme there are the times I would kill or die for real handler-level
>>> integrated source control. Or macros -- what I'd give for macros.
>>> 
> The ability to produce something 'workable' very quickly, and its use for
> rapid prototyping are strengths that the folks at RunRev should be shouting from the rooftops.
> 
> I believe that words such as 'easy' and 'fun', however, make Livecode sound a bit too
> simplistic and could detract from Livecode's rich complexity which allows its
> leverage for extremely complex stuff.
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