Defining Pet Features and Essentials

[Kevin Miller]

There must be a way we can serve you better here. That specific case
defies belief - it does not cost that amount of money to produce that
feature, nothing like it. Our development team is highly trained and very,
very efficient these days. Its just too small to defocus from delivering
the KS goals. It does not cost all that much to increase it. We¹re
probably better placed than anyone else to do that and provide crowd
source features rapidly and to a high standard. There are various
considerations though that need further thought though. I will debate this
further in house and see if we can come up with something very simple that
is better than what we currently do. No promises until we¹ve done that of
course. More soon.

Kind regards,

Kevin

Kevin Miller ~ kevin at runrev.com ~ http://www.runrev.com/
LiveCode: Everyone can code




On 11/02/2014 12:59, "Ender Nafi Elekcioglu" <endernafi at keehuna.com> wrote:

>This was part of another topic, but I didn¹t want to digress it, so
>opened a new thread.
>
>I think the issue is important as customers have an effect on the future
>roadmaps of companies.
>People wanted *theming* and *resolution independence*, RunRev provided
>it. 
>Nobody seems to care about size constraints of objects, so there isn¹t
>any plans about it.
>
>The definition should be, in my opinion, as:
>Pet features are those which can already be achieved via pure Livecode;
>where Essential features cannot.
>
>Andrew stated: 
>³Any kind of timelines or updates on any of the stretch goals other than
>theming/res independence would be great. ... it is also the least
>important to folks who aren't doing mac or mobile dev.²
>and said that he would sell a piece of his liver for the non-blocking url
>commands. 
>
>I couldn¹t agree more, even I¹m an iOS-only developer, I don¹t need and
>don¹t use *fullscreenMode*
>
>
>The thing is, resources are scarce; time and efforts of RunRev team
>should be distributed wisely.
>
>There is a reason why we call some features as *pet*.
>One can love them, desperately need them;
>but some others don¹t and those can be achieved already via pure Livecode
>script; 
>than those are not *essential*.
>
>Some example scenarios:
>
>I have lost a 16.000$ project for one lacking feature: *Rotating an image
>without wiggling*.
>Funny, isn¹t it? 
>16.000$! 
>I could happily donate one fourth of it to RunRev
>in exchange of a timed handler consisting ³set the angle of tImage to Š²
>command which works right.
>
>But that doesn¹t qualify it as an *essential* feature for two reasons:
>* Most of you don¹t need it, even don¹t notice its absence.
>* Livecode already rotates the image, just not perfect.
>It¹s a pet feature; pet of me, for one.
>
>Theming cannot be considered as an *essential*,
>use a couple of png¹s, it¹s done and done.
>
>*fullscreenMode* cannot be considered as an *essential*.
>Read the resolution of the screen, choose appropriate image resources,
>resize and relocate your controls, upscale or downscale your font-sizes,
>easy peasy. 
>
>
>
>
>Transparent unicode support is an essential;
>there¹s no way to find a work-around other than using an external, even
>externals are not sufficient most of the time.
>
>
>Raw performance is an essential;
>there¹s no way to speed things up beyond the engine¹s limits
>and they¹re fairly low.
>Try to calculate a recursive fib(33) under 0.5 second
>{it¹s 14 seconds on a brand new Macbook Pro Retina, where it¹s ~100ms.
>for Javascript.} 
>or taking a snapshot of screen on mobile under 40ms
>{it¹s +300ms. even on an iPhone 5S}.
>
>
>Using int32 for object sizes are essential;
>there¹s no way to scroll content without using groups
>and there¹s no way to increase a group¹s size limit in pixels.
>It's not 1998 anymore, resolutions of device are not 800*600.
>32thousand pixels for a group is clearly not enough for nearly any
>content. 
>
>
>A revamped url library is essential;
>One cannot cancel a download process in mobile.
>If it¹s started, it¹s started and will continue, end of story.
>One cannot update the UI while pulling the content from the server.
>All commands are blocking.
>
>Combine the last 2 of these examples and try to develop another Circa, NY
>Times, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Š
>
>I¹m giving only mobile examples, because this is my field.
>I¹m sure more examples can be given from desktop use cases.
>
>
>
>Interestingly, these are not among the future plans of RunRev except
>unicode thing. 
>
>
>Back to my definition proposal;
>
>IF (the number of developersWhoNeed < the number of
>developersWhoDontNeed) OR \
>(can_It_Be_Done_With_Pure_Livecode) THEN
>        put ³Pet Feature²
>ELSE 
>        put ³Essential Feature²
>END IF 
>
>
>
>
>Best, 
>
>
>~ Ender
>_______________________________________________
>use-livecode mailing list
>use-livecode at lists.runrev.com
>Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your
>subscription preferences:
>http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode