The Future of LiveCode in Education

[William Prothero]

Richard;
Agreed. Perhaps it’s my age. Yes, of course it won’t be a good strategy to compare Livecode to Hypercard. I only brought it up in an attempt to contrast the wide early adoption of Hypercard by educators, to the current environment where there are so many choices and also where knowledge of specific programming languages seems to be tied to employment requirements at some IT companies. That said, I think that livecode has amazing potential in education and elsewhere. I hope to support that.
Best,
Bill

> On Feb 29, 2016, at 11:53 AM, Richard Gaskin <ambassador at fourthworld.com> wrote:
> 
> William Prothero wrote:
> 
> > For those already familiar with other programming languages (I’m
> > in that group), the syntax may look archaic and put folks off. It
> > did me, at first. I was used to Fortran, Pascal, C, Lingo, etc,
> > and the Hypercard syntax just seemed primitive compared to modern
> > object-oriented syntax. BUT, when I looked at what Livecode was
> > capable of, its future, and it’s features and lack of limitations
> > that affected my goals, I became an avid user.
> 
> FWIW when I present LC at conferences I never mention HyperCard or HyperTalk, unless of course someone brings it up specifically during Q&A.
> 
> Comparing a vibrant, living system to one whose owner chose to kill it rarely makes for a useful story. :)
> 
> Besides, most folks today have never used HyperCard, and it's getting ever rarer that people I meet have even heard of it.
> 
> I've found it better to compare it to things they know, e.g.:
> 
> "It's event-drive like JavaScript, but with more intuitive syntax, esp for object references: rather than constantly typing 'document.getElementByID(tElemID)' I just type 'field 1'".
> 
> "It's at least as easy to learn as Python if not easier, but has GUI objects built in as direct language elements rather than tacked on later  as an afterthought through someone else's external package, so your UI code flows as smoothly as your business logic."
> 
> "It's as productive as VB and in some ways more so, but isn't limited to a single vendor's OS, deploying to Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, and Raspberry Pi as well - with a Server version too."
> 
> -- 
> Richard Gaskin
> Fourth World Systems
> Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
> ____________________________________________________________________
> Ambassador at FourthWorld.com                http://www.FourthWorld.com
> 
> 
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