LiveCode for the rest of us

[Tim Selander]

Roland,

Amen, preach it brother!

Filemaker with xTalk replacing FM's miserable "scripting."  I 
have been looking for that product, to no avail, since the demise 
of HyperCard.

Tim Selander
Tokyo, Japan


On 9/19/15, 1:59, R.H. wrote:
> Following the really interesting discussions on this list for two years,
> enjoying the verve with which those developers in Edinburgh are trying to
> stitch the pieces together – and I know how much dedication this requires
> supporting so many different platforms and aspects of the LiveCode engine –
> and I want to thank them and support them  - I think, not being a hard-core
> programmer, just maybe an advanced user, just someone with ideas about
> possible applications, I sometimes feel a bit lost.
>
>
> I enjoy the smart contributions seen here on the list, maybe it from Monte,
> or Peter, or Rick or whoever.
>
>
> So, I am not sure my contribution here would lead to another thread about
> LiveCode and how the "rest of us" – the non programmers – might see it. It
> is just my very subjective contribution as a non-programmer.
>
>
> Even I am thinking often, how such group of dedicated LiveCode mothership
> developers could receive more support, or how the business model for them
> would work out. Because without money nothing can be done. For example, I
> am paying for a Microsoft membership, for Adobe creative tools, for Google
> Cloud space, for a dedicated VPN to allow myself to not being detected as a
> Swiss user only (10 dollars per month), I am paying 5 bucks for my daily
> coffee in the coffee shop.
>
>
> Assuming 100,000 paying LiveCode customers, every one paying 10 dollars
> each month, it would be sufficient to get things really going and inviting
> many more supporters and developers to be on board. If it does not reach
> big numbers, what would be the future of LiveCode? It has to grow BIG.
>
>
> To me and my clients, the front end usability is what we see and what we
> want.
>
>
> I love LiveCode for its language and doing what I tell it to do (more or
> less) with simple English expressions. I question it for not providing me
> the necessary building blocks of an integrated framework allowing to do
> simple things without having to worry about the details. I do not really
> like its current standard visual interface, and it requires quite some work
> to make this interface shine and be really usable to end users.
>
>
> I love Filemaker as one of the tools I am using for in-house-development,
> but I hate its scripting language and its slow upgrade cycle, its many
> limitations, and for a small company it is already much too costly to
> distribute solutions to other users. It is not a language. It is just a
> nice database application development engine.
>
>
> What I am up to in my contribution would be the vision that LiveCode would
> introduce aspects of something like Filemaker.
>
>
> I am convinced that the majority of paying users (monthly 10 dollars) would
> be business people, smallest companies for 1-10 people - but they have
> business needs – and business almost always needs database applications.
> So, we are talking about database driven applications.
>
>
> Such apps are not made just for fun or done as a hobby, or to develop a lot
> of games. There is a definite business reason, abiding to platform specific
> usability guidelines, looking sexy, and doing what they have to do for lots
> of end users, non programmers, just users like you and me. And a business
> is ready to pay for that. Business is not paying for games. The game market
> is a different market, even though game-like presentations are sometimes
> also very useful. ( I am not against using LiveCode for game-development or
> anything to not be misunderstood ))).
>
>
> The Filemaker market is already big enough. I am sure many Filemaker users
> and developers would switch to LiveCode if it would provide a similar ease
> of development and deployment. And that means possibly using the new-born
> widgets technology.
>
>
> But today, I am still much faster in developing a small solution for a
> company using Filemaker compared to LiveCode. Much faster!
>
>
> Why not there is a field that can easily be set to display international
> date and time formats and automatically would default to local standards
> without having to script a lot and redoing the same work over and over
> again? Why not a field can be defined to represent whatever data it should
> provide and automatically check user input? Why not there are classes of
> fields that can be defined behaving the same using a domain-like concept?
>
>
> Why not there is a data grid working like a portal in Filemaker, just
> allowing to insert whatever we want, buttons and pictures, fields and
> menus? I do not have the time to work with the details of the current data
> grid – except for simple text input. Why should I have to script myself all
> the small bits and pieces? It needs too much time. And if fields are
> connected with an underlying database, I want to see the updates
> immediately. And why not there is a data input mechanism - add data, edit
> data, remove data, show data including filtering and sorting? That is the
> pattern everybody is used to.
>
>
> Why not there is an easy way to define a database with tables and then link
> database fields to tables? It could allow defining everything in the
> database while defining the fields including validation rules, indexes,
> etc.? And then allow to create links between tables combining data so that
> SQL would only be needed on a more deeper level?
>
>
> Why not there could be an automatic synchronization mechanism between a
> local database such as SQLite and a server database such as MySQL or MS-SQL
> or whatever? Do I have to all program that myself?
>
>
> Why not there would be a simple in-built filter and search mechanism to
> display data and to export/import or create output using an inbuilt Report
> engine?
>
>
> Why not there is a security framework easy to include protecting data,
> whether on a local machine, or distributed in a network, or kept on some
> server?
>
>
> Take the complexity away from the standard user as much as possible. Let
> the user focus on the application in business or private work. Above that,
> there is still all the space to go deeper and deeper for those who have the
> time and enjoy it, or must do it. And that possibility greatly ads to the
> user enjoyment.
>
>
> I would love to see such framework integrated into the engine, or very
> closely related to it, that does all such work and leaves me focusing on
> WHAT I want to achieve, and not on HOW to achieve it.
>
>
> And I agree, there is a difference in deployment for small screens, or big
> desktop monitors with various sizes and resolutions. Not everything will
> ever be possible using just one layout. But at least the data sources
> should be available everywhere, the basic logic should be there, the
> expected functionality should work the same everywhere. And then there is a
> difference in layout and what a user can do depending on the hardware he is
> using.
>
>
> I hope very much that all this will become possible with LiveCode 8 and
> higher. Or maybe, I am too ambitious? I would love to see the better
> Filemaker worked out using LiveCode. And it will find hundreds of thousands
> of users, and therefore developers.
>
>
> Because such LiveCode will be more fun, that is interesting, sexy, that is
> unique to each company. Changes to a data model should be easy, deployment
> to many users should just be a push-button operation.
>
>
> LiveCode applications must also visually look like a very modern
> state-of-the-art piece of solid work, really supporting standard usability
> and user interface guidelines, or allow to break standards only in case
> there is a definite advantage. Follow the rules unless you master the
> rules. Only then you can break out.
>
>
> I have seen so many ugly LiveCode applications – and I am even producing
> such ugly apps myself – that there is no wonder that nobody out there gets
> overly exited since there are thousands of nice looking web pages and web
> applications, and desktop and mobile apps...
>
>
> Again, I vote for paying 10 dollars a month, and supporting a very speedy
> growth of LiveCode to have hundreds of thousands of such paying users and
> customers. I am not willing to spend 100 dollars a month as I am comparing
> with other tools, and I am already paying lots of money which creating
> holes in my purse. 10 bucks everyone will easily afford for something he or
> she likes.The profit is in the numbers.
>
>
> And at least then I could also expect that documentation is reflecting the
> actual engine and I am not spending hours and days searching around just to
> find out that something is not working, or not working as expected.
> documentation is a field that needs a huge effort to improve.
>
>
> And why not there are ready-made solutions as in Filemaker that just can be
> tailored to individual needs providing the basis for a professional looking
> and behaving application? All the basic coding should be there providing a
> template about how to script in LiveCode. It is not enough to have a small
> scale app displaying something. It should serve a business purpose, a
> private purpose, an educational purpose. because business will pay for
> LiveCode development. And if the big business guys are not sold out to it
> yet, the small business guys will do it.
>
>
> There need to be hundreds and even thousands of well-looking and
> well-performing apps out there stamped with "Made with LiveCode". How to
> make developers do that? They must see the advantage. They must see the
> business for themselves. They do it to earn money as well!
>
>
> I would employ developers paying 10 bucks to LiveCode for each of them each
> month, and have them develop what I want to receive, and my clients want to
> enjoy. I would even have them contribute to the engine.
>
>
> And I just believe that LiveCode needs many more professional developers
> and people focused coding, on professional documentation and on marketing
> this "mothership". Why not outsource part of the work to save costs? I
> myself have built and managed teams of over 100 people in software
> development over 15 years, and it was really a joy working with intelligent
> people for reasonable costs. At least there could be testing team
> outsourced somewhere. Why not many more autistic people - often good in
> programming - are taking the rid? Or educated young people coming from
> Syria as refugees? Or lots of smart people growing up every day in Africa?
> Or India? Maybe it is too difficult to convince already established
> programmers? And a lot could be sponsored. I am not talking of small
> numbers of intelligent people.
>
>
> If LiveCode is not growing faster, fed from a naturally increasing interest
> and driven by the joy of doing it, shared by developers around the world
> who are just happily supporting it, then there is a danger that it would
> eventually sink down to the bottom of the sea.
>
>
> Embrace the world. Become attractive. There must be a "wow" effect to move
> people.
>
>
> I want to see LiveCode lifting up like the flying Dutch- (sorry) Scotsman,
> soon, sooner, today.
>
>
> Roland
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