64 bit desktop apps

[Mark Waddingham]

On 2017-06-08 21:16, Richmond Mathewson via use-livecode wrote:
> I'm afraid you misread my question. When I stated I was running MacOS
> 10.4 PPC it was not in expectation of your leaping
> up and down and say "Well, yes, Just for you, Richmond, we're going to
> set things up for future versions of LiveCode to
> build Mac PPC standalones."

Strictly speaking your question was (essentially) "So you don't believe 
in backwards compatibility then?" and then segued into a repeat about 
your usage of PowerPC based Macs... May I suggest you make your 
questions a little clearer (and perhaps less perjorative ;)) then you 
might actually get answers to what you actually meant to ask, instead of 
what it sounded like you asked.

In terms of upping the minimum version requirement for 9.0 to 10.9 then 
using this as reference:

    
http://www.everymac.com/systems/by_capability/maximum-macos-supported.html

Intel Macs fall into four categories:

    - Those which can only run up to 10.6

    - Those which can only run up to 10.7

    - Those which can only run up to 10.11

    - Those which can run current Mac versions

Continuing to support 10.6 and 10.7 is *extremely* difficult due to both 
Cocoa APIs and C++ support. Indeed, continuing to do so would mean two 
things:

   1) Leveraging new APIs on the Mac platform would be much harder, 
meaning that will happen even slower than it has done up until now.

   2) We can't use newer versions of the C++ standard which not only 
makes writing code for the engine harder, but also means that the 
chances of bugs and vulnerabilities increase (because new methods of 
writing C++ which are available in C++11 allow you to do so in much 
'safer' ways). Basically more regressions, more bugs, slower evolution.

I'd also point out (again) that we are talking about machines which are 
now > 10 years old (the last Mac which can only run up to 10.7 was 
released in 2007).

Furthermore, as people have reiterated several times, those OSes are not 
supported by Apple and are hugely insecure in the modern climate. Whilst 
I get what you are saying about 'reusing old hardware' it does seems a 
bit 'off' for 'us' to be palming off old machines onto 'developing' 
countries which we wouldn't use ourselves for those very reasons.

Richard's repeated suggestion that such machines should be 'Linux-ised' 
still always was and continues to be an excellent suggestion. Remember 
that as as time goes by the amount of up to date software which *can* 
run on them will dwindle to nothing - for the same reason as we have had 
to look long and hard at our platform support and make changes.

All Macs which can run 10.8 can also run 10.9 - which is the new minimum 
version for 9. So, yes, there is a set of Intel Macs released between 
2005 and 2007 which will not be able to run 9; but the number of Macs 
which fall outside of this group is many many times larger and will, of 
course, continue to grow year on year.

Warmest Regards,

Mark.

P.S. Please remember that LiveCode is open-source - 95% of changes we 
make to LiveCode as a whole go into the open-source repository. People 
are more than free to fork it and produce a 'legacy version' if they 
wish. A bit like a third-party group has done for FireFox.

-- 
Mark Waddingham ~ mark at livecode.com ~ http://www.livecode.com/
LiveCode: Everyone can create apps