Business Application Framework

[Richard Gaskin]

Monte Goulding wrote:

 >> 1. Why hasn't this been more widely promoted?
 >
 > It's only been promoted on the lists, forums and Facebook. For
 > a while RunRev were going to buy it, then they decided to do
 > their own so I stopped pushing ahead with lcVCS as it appeared
 > to be a waste of time. Now this and maybe it's back in the game..
 > Not sure yet.

It seems that it's very much in the game.  Peter's post was especially 
helpful for two reasons:

- It confirms the inherent difficulty in creating a general-purpose
   VCS tool that covers all edge cases.

- It clarifies that LiveCode's solution is even more limited in terms
   of applicable uses cases, specialized for use in this very specific
   business framework system.

Given this, I think it's well past time for us all to give lcVCS a 
second look as the community's solution for version control.

IIRC the edge cases it may not handle are relatively uncommon anyway, 
and the value it provides has been strong enough for Trevor to write 
some very glowing things about.

Let's embrace it, enhance it, and make it a centerpiece for all of us 
who use Github.


 >> 2. Why hasn't it been submitted to the only resource-sharing tool we 
 >> have built into the IDE?
 >
 > I'm not sure I've ever looked in there... Is it worthwhile?

"Sample Stacks" is a bit of a turn-off, and the older "RevOnline" name 
wasn't much better. But the role is very very worthwhile: it's where all 
of us can share stack files easily.

In a recent meeting with Kevin it was clear he recognizes the value of 
that role, and we both agree the name needs to be changed one more time 
to make sure it reflects the useful role for us to share things.  He's 
working with the team to see if that can happen soon.

In the meantime, any of us can upload it there, esp. given your generous 
choice of GPL for its license.  But one of the nice things about your 
posting it is that it reflects your name, and given how much work you 
put into it I'm all in favor of anything that provides as much 
recognition as possible for you.


 > Before you get excited lcVCS doesn't support LC 8 yet because I'd
 > need to depend on IDE code to do it at the moment and that seems
 > risky. That and there appeared to be no point working on it until
 > today...

I wouldn't worry about v8 just yet.  It's a very exciting set of new 
technologies, but it's going to be some months before it's as robust and 
performant as the current version, and there are still a few design 
decisions to be completed.

For now the company's revenue is dependent on the current version, v7, 
and with v6 soon to be EOL'd we all need to make sure v7 is rock solid 
for us anyway.

So lets dive in with lcVCS in v7 today, and with any luck the project 
will attract enough contributors that they'll be able to handle at least 
some of whatever work may be needed to port it to v8 later, allowing you 
to maximize the time you spend on your externals which the community 
depends on as well.

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  LiveCode Community Manager
  richard at livecode.com