How alive is LiveCode?

[Richard Gaskin]

Michael Chean wrote:

> I want to write  databased applications to take care of some of the
> pain-points at my current employment.   And if this works
> out I'd like to extend it to the full application - which is your normal
> professional billing program.
> I'm using VFP right now and would have no reluctance to continue using it
> if it were still in development.  For ad-hoc reporting
> and querying it's the best.  VFP covers all of the bases including report
> writing, a built in db, SQL support (sort of)
> and I can see that with LiveCode I'm going to have to add external tools to
> fill in the gaps. Thanks for the responses.

Yes, FoxPro had many nice advantages.  I used to use the Mac version 
back in the day, and was quite impressed with it even back then.  RIP; 
it was a fine tool.

For reports in LiveCode you can roll your own but it's a lot of work to 
do it from scratch, so just as the VisualBASIC world relies on Crystal 
Reports we LiveCoders use tools like Quartam Reports.

Sure, it's an add-on, but it's nicely crafted and well worth a look.

With most RAD tools these days I think you'll find that reporting is 
such a complex beast that most of them suggest a third-party tool to 
handle the heavy lifting.  FoxPro was very much an exception to the rule 
in that regard.

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World
  LiveCode training and consulting: http://www.fourthworld.com
  Webzine for LiveCode developers: http://www.LiveCodeJournal.com
  LiveCode Journal blog: http://LiveCodejournal.com/blog.irv