Advantages of LC as high level language--examples

[Bob Sneidar]

Let's not forget readability of code. We send code snippets back and forth all the time and even novice programmers can figure out what the author was doing. 

Bob


On Nov 29, 2010, at 4:40 PM, Jeff Massung wrote:

> On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 1:29 PM, Devin Asay <devin_asay at byu.edu> wrote:
> 
>> Hello all,
>> 
>> In trying to explain to students how high level languages such as LiveCode
>> can make development faster, I would like to give concrete examples of how
>> single-line LC commands actually execute dozens of C++ commands in the
>> engine. For example, a simple one-liner like:
>> 
>>       show field "demo" with visual effect dissolve
>> 
>> Must have lots of lines of compiled C code behind it.
>> 
> 
> 
> Sorry to be blunt, but Lines of Code is one of the most horrible metrics for
> defining how productive someone can be in a language. By that rational APL
> is one of the most productive languages of all time, and I dare anyone here
> to actually use it. For example, here's the Sieve of Eratosthenes (finding
> all prime numbers up to X) in APL:
> 
> (2=+⌿0=(⍳X)∘.|⍳X)/⍳X
> 
> That's worth at least 8-10 lines of code in LiveCode Script, but I can't
> imagine anyone here would consider APL a more productive language.
> 
> Similarly, the example of the dissolve is equally poor. Keep in mind that
> LiveCode doesn't give you the dissolve for free. There are many lines of
> (probably C) code that implement that for you and call into QuickTime or
> other libraries. And with LiveCode you only get one dissolve. If you'd like
> it different, tough. So saying it's "one line of code" is a cop-out, and by
> that rational, a C programmer could just download a rendering library that
> does the same thing and do:
> 
> execute_dissolve();
> 
> And now they are just as productive as they would be (given that example) in
> LiveCode. The same will be true of Jim's comments on
> architectures/platforms, and Jacqueline's example of creating an alias.
> 
> So, now that's out of the way, let's examine why LiveCode *is* more
> productive for many tasks than C or similarly derived languages... LiveCode
> is exactly what it claims to be: Live. Being high-level is simply
> [delicious] gravy.
> 
> Time-to-market is a major factor in ROI and being able to start taking the
> second step in whatever your plan(s) may be. In my experience, the single
> biggest factor in reducing TTM is being able to iterate on ideas extremely
> fast without concern for what's necessarily "best" at the moment. After all,
> 90% of all code written will never see the end of the product. But what will
> is the knowledge gained from trying it out and slowly making things better
> and better.
> 
> What LiveCode allows someone to do is continually iterate and improve their
> code in a living environment complete with data that doesn't go away every
> time there's a bug that needs to be fixed. This puts LiveCode apps in the
> interesting position of being constantly dog-fooded (
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_your_own_dog_food), and this will only
> make the applications even better. During that period of discovery and
> "knowledge gaining," there's no feeling of starting over, but rather just
> continually improving what's already there.
> 
> I could go on, but I think I'm getting the point across.
> 
> Jeff M.
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