Make numberFormat even better AND Cognitive Load

[Roland Huettmann]

With reference to the past suggestions, and the last one from Richard
Gaskin:

"Even if the core team were in a position to drop other priorities to add
formatting to fields, they couldn't do it any faster than a scripter who
has the advantage of doing it in LiveCode itself."

I have been thinking about the underlying reasons why we are discussing. I
agree with Richard that a lot of what we have in mind can be done simply
using LiveCode script and behaviors for fields. But are we not doing this
already most of the time?

===
 AGAIN -- having read all - I vote for the LC-NATIVE "Excel style" number
format (enhanced numberFormat in LC, not a new one, no depreciation, but
just different ways to achieve the same) and the ability of fields (text
controls) to express at least the same styling properties that fields
(cells) in Excel support, or text boxes in the web browser without having
to write my own functions. I would like to have it "built-in". It is a
wish. LiveCode should grow so that the team developing it will consist of
100 core developers. It is a wish. Maybe someone else can help developing.
We can fund it. Whatever. It is a wish. And I do not want to stop wishing
just because there is "no time left" for the core developer team to care
for such minor (???) details. They need more support and more funding in
such case. Would they not deserve it? And are there not billions of dollars
around, often enough just wasted for what? ))). Why should not a clever
large company see LiveCode as a way to enhance their public awareness and
sponsor it?
===

Expanding the "numberformat" going beyond...

I favor great visual style and I would love when people start using
LiveCode as a development platform even for the web, as a design system, as
a way to translate to HTML/CSS, Javascript and PHP using ONE base, as a
workshop for great content management systems -- and a lot has been done in
this way during the last three years.

And I am also asking myself, why am I spending time over and over writing
lines of code that are just repeating themselves for me and others, more or
less. And my own library is just my own. I use it. I could share it, but it
is not part of the community really. (And I feel too shy to share it unless
it was reviewed and tested a hundred times.)

So basically, we are not so much discussing about ourselves -- at least not
when there is some experience gained developing with LiveCode -- we are
discussing about the LANGUAGE as we believe it deserves to be spreading out
into the world to 100x or 1000x more developers or people wishing to at
least using such jewel for their fun at home, for in-house development,
just to solve some problems that otherwise would require a professional and
very costly setup.

We know that we can already solve lots of such questions about formats
(number formats, date formats, colors, forms, visual appearance in general)
just reverting to scripting. For example, to just have a bottom border
underlined, I can of course just use a line object and have it set where I
want it to be. But is this really how it should be in today's world? I
would rather like to focus on even more abstract levels and not having to
care too much about the daily standard routines.

I am thinking of the ATTRACTION TO THE LANGUAGE especially for NEWBIES,
young people, retired people, who have not much or no experience at all
with computer languages. There is a huge market.

So, I am stretching out beyond numberFormat -- more into Cognitive Load --
another nice discussion we are having.

Why should not retired people have fun developing on a computer? Would not
LiveCode be the only and truly ideal way to learn and enjoy results
immediately? It can be a business by itself. There are growing numbers of
them, millions and millions of retired people who even have all the time to
not allowing their brains to rust. It is "just" a question of proper
worldwide marketing.

Or think of Africa with hundreds of millions of young people who have not
much chance to even touch any computer, even if almost every of their
elderly brothers and sisters owns a cheap Android phone to be proud of.
There are hundreds of millions of young people eager to get involved. And
some of them could even make a living using it. And there are funds with
hundreds of millions just for such young people.

I want the language to shine bright, really be able to compete, and even
when acknowledging that it is probably impossible to win much ground
against Javascript or PHP or Python. The base for such other languages is
too big. The support such languages enjoy from largest companies can not be
argued against.

But still, I feel, that I would love to see LiveCode gaining ground, be the
first choice at least for beginners. (And I say this because I have fun
using it.)

Who will start with the expanded "numberformat" to be shipped with newer
versions? )

Roland

P.S. I hope this contribution message is not too much missing the point --
which is specifically "numberformat" and "Cognitive Load"