Web vs Native (was Re: HTML5 limitations?)

[Sannyasin Brahmanathaswami]

Wow! 

Quite the discussion! and here I was away from the list adding one last (hehe maybe not) feature to V1 of the SivaSiva app (hope to release by Aug 15) which was to create a "news channel" of course the obvious way to do this is have an HTML page on line, that you call into a browser widget. So easy! parse a date string, if the on lline version is > then "You have news!"  

So for the first time I mapped four buttons  in the html to 4 js handlers  to navigation handlers in our LC app framework and "Oh… My…. it works!"

So, the "pragmatic" way to go is to get the widget into to msg path… when you can digest that. 

Thanks Mark for letting us know are listening and for all the detail on the issues. It's very encouragagin.

Suggest we split the HTML5 Deployment discussion  from the browser-widget-in-the-message-path.

for others list: you may recall that we did ask for an estimate on the cost of this. You can find the response on the QA, I think the business response was "We need $14,000.00" to implement.  So, when you *do* finish digesting all the buffet in front of you, please *do* put this up "browser-widget-in-the-message-path" for crowd funding. I am in… 

the HTML5 thing IMHO is a completely different animal. 

a) looks great for building small experiences, but then the download time for the engine is waaaay too long.
b) using it for a really robust, complex application… looks so very difficult to implement (as Mark has explained)

so, frankly, I must be dense, but I don't yet see why this is so important… if you or you company wants to do "web" why not just do web? (php, js, html5, livecode-server-rev-igniter)

As have mentioned to HQ off list: While Andre's depth/breadth of experience makes it easy for him to talk about "web is the way"  there is a whole new "market" coming online: Print business is dying. "kajillion" graphics arts designers are in the position of having meetings where, instead of discussing the next ink-on-paper book project, they publishing/media team is talking about the "digital coloring book"   And this is Adobe's big, HUGE focus right now… (which just proves my point)

Meanwhile the expertise to actually get that done is not present in the team (this is happening here.) So there is a lot or pressure for very smart people who want to build apps, to get on this digital revolution/train… 

THEY WILL NEVER LEARN JS, PYTHON, REACT (whatever flavor of the month js frameowrk is the current fad…) OR PHP! Period! And Adobe's offereings to this market  are 
a) expensive and 
b) not so great  (some reallly horrible UX by a company that should know better…. they are fishing! When I see some stuff they do I think "sheesh I could build this in LC in a week and it would be so much better")

And this "media staff" market   *all* have money… IMHO LC needs to get back to a low priced entry point/over full set of features for basic app delivery MINUS key business/enterprise add ons.   Then target the *same* market that adobe is now…

And there is also a secondary market among experienced JS coders… I have met a least 3 in the past few month (lots of hi-tech IT visitors here)  who are very, very jaded "been doing Javascript since I was 17… getting sick of it every few months a new framework. Another snakepit of libraries….spend all my time migrating, debugging, no fun any more… no time to really build content, just wallowing in code all day long… very little output. at the end of the week I got 4-5 screens working "

 and having "fun again" programming… LC wrapping a widget with just enough JS for the eye candy will be a very, very cool part of their toolbox. 

So, *after* you do get "browser-widget-in-the-message-path"  + a low buy in entry point  IMHO you can "market this thing to the moon."   to both the entire publishing industry AND the current legions of JS coders.  They wll just have so much fun with it… will be like cotton candy…

disclaimer: predictions about the future of IT is close to predicting the weather on Kauai 

BR

  
On 7/28/17, 5:57 AM, "use-livecode on behalf of Mark Waddingham via use-livecode" <use-livecode-bounces at lists.runrev.com on behalf of use-livecode at lists.runrev.com> wrote:

    I can assure you your 'prayer' has been heard - however, there is a 
    slight chasm between hearing a prayer and being able to act on it 
    (especially for mere mortals, like ourselves ;)).
    
    There is a whole (reasonably sized) 'new market' for LiveCode in the 
    space of providing the shell into which HTML5/JS webapps can be placed. 
    i.e. The creation of a native app which wraps a HTML5/JS web-app which 
    then has direct access to all the platform features LiveCode gives you 
    access to (a bit like PhoneGap or Cordova or ... - the fact there are so 
    many of these things suggests that it is a very useful thing that people 
    actually want to do). Now, this works quite well right now - although I 
    do appreciate that the asynchronous nature of return values from the 
    host (LiveCode) does make some things more difficult to do (*although*, 
    it should be pointed out that async something I think *all* other host 
    environments that provide this kind of wrapping have to put up with!).