The Future of LiveCode in Education

[Jeff Reynolds]

Yes was true for me as well even though i had programmed in a few different languages in the past. At the time HC came out i was in grad school {molecular biology) and not programming. After 10 minutes of looking at HC and poking at it i realized how much fun and useful things i could do so quickly and easily. Like Jacqueline I did not think in a few years that HC (and later MC, then LC) would be one of the main things i would do in my work for the next 25+ years of multimedia and exhibit design and production!

Years later HC was the system I did one of Apple’s first (and very few) Multimedia CD-ROMs (Earth Explorer). Everyone, including Apple (I had to convince them and they were a little chagrinned I had to convince them!), thought it could run on HC and not require C++. Programming and debugging costs would have been much higher if we had! I would have never gotten on that path if HC was not preinstalled on that little Mac plus…

The CD-ROM sold very well at the height of the CD-ROM boom there, but had only a minor impact in Education as only a fraction of schools had the money to spend buying the copies they needed even with the package deals Apple ed had. But within a year of so they started shipping the CD-ROM with every school mac. This made a profound impact in education for a few years as it was out there all over the place being use and not costing the schools effectively (and could be used on older equipment by sharing the cdrom). I think our company made way more at the dollar a disc bulk license than they ever did with the retail and education sales that has all sorts of costs associated eating up the larger profit margin! for Apple the dollar or two increase was minimal in a computer’s cost and it got them lots of good will from the schools as well as a positive impact on providing great content to the schools not really available elsewhere at the time. Again would not have happened if not shipped with every education mac.

So how about LC community shipping on all education macs? or on all macs for that matter? I think Jacqueline hit it on the head that it being there and easy to start playing with were the key to HC and the Mac’s success! Apple needs to continue this tradition and LC fits the bill. LC made an impression on Apple with getting into the iOS app development, so its not a total stranger…

cheers

jeff




> On Feb 29, 2016, at 3:13 PM, use-livecode-request at lists.runrev.com wrote:
> 
> HyperCard took off because it shipped free on every Mac. That's 
> certainly the reason I started with it, because I never in a million 
> years thought I'd like programming. But it was there on our new Mac so I 
> started exploring. The language was easily grasped and there were dozens 
> of examples to look at. I got hooked immediately.
> 
> If HC hadn't been there right in front of me I never would have touched 
> it, no matter how many glowing reports I might have read about it 
> elsewhere. I was positive that programming wasn't something I was suited 
> for. I am also sure that's what happened with all the thousands of new 
> HC users who never dreamed they could produce their own software.
> 
> -- 
> Jacqueline Landman Gay         |     jacque at hyperactivesw.com <mailto:jacque at hyperactivesw.com>
> HyperActive Software           |     http://www.hyperactivesw.com <http://www.hyperactivesw.com/>