Learning LiveCode

[Robert Sneidar]

Hi Keith. Being in IT for as long as I have, I do not think the difficulty is in enticing anyone to try Livecode. The real difficulty as I see it is threefold. First, development companies are typically standardized around the big ones, C and it's variants, and Java. If you want a job as a developer, you MUST know one or all of these. 

Second, these systems have a multi-developer capability that Livecode simply does not have, although efforts have been made to achieve that end. Thirdly, developers have already spent a lot of money and time becoming certified and proficient in what languages they already know. To abandon all of that in favor of a system they do not know, or know the advantages AND the limitations of, is asking just a little too much of them. 

I can cite a fourth, though some may certainly disagree with me. Pride. People take pride in their own accomplishments, and have established a certain degree of credibility among their peers in the circles and systems they are familiar with. They look down on other systems as "less than adequate" and "not really serious" not because they KNOW all about Livecode and can make that judgement, but simply because they are proud of what they know and can do, and are not about to give that up without some kind of order of magnitude in advantage that you can show them. 

So how do we show them that order of magnitude of advantage? Simple. Develop professional looking applications in ridiculously short periods of time, and then demonstrate them. Yes, it is much simpler to code in Livescript (can I call it that?) but high end developers are not looking for simplicity. In fact, they would probably perceive simplicity of the language a detriment, assuming that it limited the developer in what they can do. 

I don't mean to be such a naysayer, but I do think it is important for us to quantify why it is so hard to get high level programmers to consider Livecode as an alternative, at least for some of their applications. 

Bob


On Dec 28, 2012, at 2:34 AM, Keith Clarke wrote:

> I know I'm not alone in having great difficulties in getting experienced developers to withhold their judgement on LiveCode being anything more than hobby-ware.  
> 
> If RunRev want to bring developers across the great divide, there must be a bridge from where the masses reside to the brave new world?
> 
> Is there any kind of 'Rosetta Stone' that relates traditional and OO development concepts to those of LiveCode?
> 
> Are there any specific switcher's or evaluator's guides targeted at the main development communities, such as .Net, Java, C++, C#...
> Best,
> Keith..