Release 8.0 DP 14

[Richard Gaskin]

Roger Eller wrote:

 > Perhaps "apparent" was not the right word, and was mis-used in my
 > moment of frustration.

Happens to all of us.  You should see the many emails I don't send - 
sometimes we just need to vent. :)

 > However, I would still love to see the stats on platform-specific
 > (human interaction) testing times at RR before a new version is
 > announced.  Sub-platforms would be interesting to see as well,
 > such as Windows 7 home, vs Windows 7 pro in a secure Enterprise
 > computing environment vs the plethora of OS X and iOS versions.
 > Do they test if the installer needs elevated privileges, or the
 > machine hasn't been secured at all? etc.

I don't know the full scope of their OS use during development, but I 
feel somewhat confident in suggesting Windows use could be increased there.

The desktop is all about Windows.  Always has been, and will remain so 
for the forseeable future.  LiveCode does a wonderful job of allowing 
developers to choose their own OS for developing regardless what 
platforms they're deploying to, and given our community's history of 
HyperCard knowledge we know that the LC audience is currently skewed 
very disproportionately in favor of OS X.

But that's the past.  The future must have a number of new developers 
far larger than the current ones, and we can expect any new audience 
will reflect the larger demographic in which Windows dominates.

Mark Waddingham explained here a few months back why most of their 
machines are Macs:  it's the only computer on which one can legally run 
all three OS families, with OS X on metal and various Windows and Linux 
version in VMs.

I appreciate that, and used to buy Macs exclusively for that reason, but 
those of us who use VMs know how it plays out in practice: we wind up 
using our VMs only for periodic testing and touch-ups, and spend most of 
our time with whatever OS is installed on metal.

IMNSHO I believe it would be helpful for the LC IDE team to adopt a 
workflow in which one full day each week is spent entirely in a platform 
other than the one they personally prefer.  So for an OS X fan that 
would mean three days of the week with the Mac they love, but one full 
day immersed in Windows and another full day immersed in Linux.

I believe that if this were adopted it would greatly accelerate the 
discovery and resolution of platform-specific issues.

And after all, the beauty of LiveCode is that it should no impact 
productivity of the team at all; after all, if you're spending your day 
in LC it should be equally productive regardless what OS it's running 
on, so where's it's not that's an LC problem that can be identified and 
fixed.

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Systems
  Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
  ____________________________________________________________________
  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com                http://www.FourthWorld.com