[ANN] Updates to LiveCode's platform support policy

[Richard Gaskin]

Colin Holgate wrote:

 > 1. The description is unnecessarily political. Under linux you take
 > the time to explain the support for several different version of
 > Linux, all of which added together are not as popular as Mac OS.
 > Under OS X you’re almost apologizing for taking away support time for
 > other platforms.

I'm impressed by your sensitivity to the nuance there, but not 
surprised; you've always been among the more astute and considerate of us.

In this case, though, it may be a cultural thing:  Linux folks tend to 
have thick skins (well, except when they're arguing with other Linux 
folks), and generally accept the inherent complexity that comes with 
having so many distros to choose from.

While folks managing end-user-focused distros like Ubuntu or Mint tend 
to be picky about nomenclature and how it may affect the gestalt of the 
UX, you'll almost never see a developer running Kali or Qubes 
complaining that they weren't sufficiently catered to. :)

Like Roger, I didn't even notice it.


I'm not sure what this has to do with LC's support page, but it was 
interesting just the same:
 >  http://9to5mac.com/2016/03/18/os-x-versus-linux-developers/

That Linux has earned enough of an audience for that to be even a 
question is noteworthy in itself.

But it's also worth noting that the survey only touches one side of the 
development workflow, the client.

Most development work these days is client-server, and like Apple 
themselves, with most devs the server side is usually Linux, sometimes 
Windows, and rarely Mac.

I had a good talk with a lead server engineer from Apple who had a booth 
at the SoCal Linux Expo looking for talent to help manage their 
ever-growing Linux installs, and Apple's investment in Linux to run so 
much of their backend infrastructure is impressive.


 > 2. It could be worth changing the title to OS X / macOS, and
 > including version 10.12 in the list.

Seconded.  Not only is it more au curant, but Apple's recent renaming 
back to a variant of its original name helps our humble language avoid a 
token change, since "macos" is the string constant returned with platform().

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