Opening a Supercard file in Livecode?

[Bob Earp]

Well, I think you are half correct Richard.  These sort of decisions need to be made on a case by case basis, and although I'd love to be paid for rewriting code every time I'm asked to edit something, I can't find customers that would cough up the moolah.  However, if you have some that you can pass along, please let me know ;-)

Firstly, I submit that projects that worked very acceptably in SC on an old machine will certainly not run worse non-optimzed in LC on a new machine.  

Secondly, where the original SC project was very complex and consumed hundreds if not thousands of hours getting it to a release point, it would likely take far less time with a converter, even with bugs, than creating from scratch.  

For example, I have some old SC simulations of aircraft systems that would be very beneficial to a couple of customers in an LC and/or an iOS version.  They don't need any updating, just moving to a new environment.  I'm shamed to say that I can't find the original project documentation, so creating from scratch truly is starting from a blank sheet of paper, but a working SC project.  

Then again, going from ToolBook to Rev (now LC) with an eLearning authoring system and LMS, which is equally as complex, was a complete failure using the converter route.  The syntax was just a tad too different/obtuse, plus Rev had built in functions that I had to script in TB.  So the end result was rebuild from scratch with a much better product.  I did have the original project documentation too !!

BTW, your description of the SC -> Rev converter sounds a lot like my code.  Good, but not completely bug free ;-)

best, Bob...

PS, for those readers whose English is not their first language, moolah is slang for money, but its origins are unknown.  To quote one reference, "As a vernacular synonym for “money” since the late  1930s, “moolah” has the swing and swagger of great slang and instantly brands its user as way too cool to sweat the small change of life."  I'm not that old, but in the hope I am branded in the latter category, I decided to use it ;-)

Richard Gaskin wrote:

> Jerry Jensen wrote:
> 
>> Always take advantage of a good excuse to rewrite your code. The first pancake is never the best one!
> 
> Well said.
> 
> The SC->Rev converter RunRev used to offer was okay but not completely 
> bug-free, and Ken's was more complete but it was so long ago and SC has 
> added so many objects since then that I don't know how valuable either 
> converter would be today.
> 
> But even with the best possible converter, Stephen pointed out the 
> weakness with such an approach:  at best you're using only the features 
> that intersect between the two tools, so you'll never get an optimal 
> LiveCode solution with an automated converter.
> 
> I've done enough SC->Rev conversions over the years that I'm fully 
> convinced that automation is not the most productive thing to do. 
> Seductive perhaps, but not productive.  You just miss too many 
> opportunities to streamline objects and code for LiveCode-specific ways 
> of doing things that it's almost always a better investment of time to 
> use the SC version only as an inspiration for making a native LiveCode 
> version from scratch.

Bob Earp
White Rock, British Columbia.