hair-pulling frustration

[Richmond]

On 11/11/14 22:59, Dr. Hawkins wrote:
> <snip>
> I really can't give up any significant portion of my coding time to do 
> livecode's work for them; these are things that are so basic that they 
> never should have seen a release to the public. 

I'm afraid, Richard Gaskin et al, the above is going to be a fairly 
widespread response.

Obviously Dr Hawkins is not over-enamoured of the Open Source theory: 
LiveCode is paid for in a different way [the "I'll scratch your back if 
you'll scratch mine" way] than the 'standard' commercial way [I pay you, 
and you do ALL the work].

Part of the problem is that Livecode is NOT like GIMP (for instance): 
GIMP is 100% Open Source, while Livecode both IS and ISN'T Open Source,
and RunRev has to play a terrible balancing act keeping both camps happy.

-----------------------------

I can see this problem, and have to cope with it frequently in my 'real' 
job.

I run an English as a Foreign Language school in Bulgaria, and have 
constantly to explain to parents that, in spite of the fact they
pay me to teach English to their children, their children will not learn 
anything if only I do any work and the kids do nothing.
One cannot learn English in the same way as a sponge soaks up water.

-----------------------------

The difference between what I do and LiveCode is also quite important: 
Livecode is a product which can be used [rather like
a car can be used to drive from place to place] without having to 
understand what goes on 'under the hood'. Language learning
means constantly messing around under the hood.

And, quite honestly, if I bought a car and then was supposed to beta 
test the thing and keep going back to buy replacements
every time something went wrong with the car I would get pretty fed up 
pretty quickly.

The reason I don't get fed up is I keep going back and getting free 
replacements, and that is the main difference.

Now what I don't get with the free version is the ability to lock up my 
code so that other people cannot pinch it, and at present that
doesn't fuss me. I can, however, imagine a time when it will matter, so 
I will stump up the money to buy the non-free version.

If, on buying the non-free version and it turns out to be "dicky" I 
shall be even more trenchant in my response than Dr Hawkins.

-----------------------------

Of course Dr Hawkins does not really make a distinction between 
'developer previews' and 'release candidates' (which are marked
as such to signal a lower level of confidence in their functional 
completeness than 'stable' versions. He does, however, state
that 'stable' versions are not much better than the others, and that is 
where the problem lies.

Several times I have stated that in my opinion RunRev are being swept 
along into a sort of feature bloat which prevents them
from sorting out little 'niggles' in existing features. I se no reason 
to change that opinion.

When or if I come to thinking about buying a commercial version of 
LiveCode I will be in a very odd position, not really knowing whether
I am buying a version that is, really, stable, or just something 
beta-ish labelled 'stable' which will then cause all sorts of unforeseen
problems with my product.

Richmond.