Sprite Kit, Box2D, Performance and LiveCode's Approach to Game Coding

[Richmond]

On 08/18/2013 01:18 AM, Lynn Fredricks wrote:

<snip>
> An investment that cannot work on all supported platforms and not 
> leverage the natural productivity of LiveCode isn't a good investment 
> for Runtime.
<snip>

Very well put.

There is a danger of getting distracted by these sorts of things.

I don't know about all the other users on this list, but I do know that 
quite a few have invested years
of effort on mastering the subtleties of Livecode (and some more, like 
myself, who have been knocking
around in a slightly more half-hearted way), and what "frightens" me is 
that were RunRev to take too much tent
of individual platform quirks and specialities (apart from those that 
are strictly necessary to keep Livecode running on those platforms) they 
might be spending a lot of effort that, in the long run, may not pay off.

To illustrate this consider a possible future scenario:

2030:

Desktop computers are largely a thing of the past.

A large array of handheld devices run on successor systems to Android, 
Linux and Mobile versions of
Mac and Windows, as well as 4-5 completely new operating systems. AND, 
before I forget, systems presenting a 'screen' in a lens of one's 
glasses and a keyboard fixed onto one's sporran (maybe that is why 
Richmond still wears a kilt; in expectation of the day . . .).

Many of these devices have no local storage facilities at all beyond 
their operating systems, possibly stored
on ROM chips or somesuch, everything (including apps) being stored in a 
cloud or on a dedicated server.

Without wishing to pass myself off as some sort of seer (I am NOT the 
7th son of a 7th son), I think
that there is a chance I may be at least 50% right there.

AND . . . in 2030:

What we think of as 'Windows' and what we think of as 'Mac', and the 
conglomeration of related systems we
think of as 'Linux' will either be extinct or have transmogrified to 
such states that they bear little or no resemblance to what they are now.

Now, I don't know the exact age of Kevin Miller, but I plan to be a 
sprightly 77 year-old who is still up to
his "light-programming" and his "heavy stirring" on the Use-List and or 
Forums. What DO KNOW is that Kevin is quite considerably younger than 
me, and does not indicate any great urge to retire . . . .

SO; RunRev should not go chasing platform specific innovations lest they 
be Boojums [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snark_%28Lewis_Carroll%29 ].

Richmond.