Why killing Media was killing an investment in the future

[Richard Gaskin]

Peter Alcibiades wrote:
> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/schools/code-club-afterschool-group-teaches-children-how-to-become-programming-whizz-kids-7956967.html

Scratch != LiveCode

Or, translated into LiveCode:

Scratch <> LiveCode

In that translation we see one of many reasons why LiveCode is great for 
rapid development of cross-platform GUI apps, but in some ways not the 
ideal learning tool:  it works very differently from most of the popular 
languages, so while it can be helpful to learn algorithms and some 
aspects of structure and style, the more you use it the more you'll pick 
up habits that aren't transferable to other languages.

But more relevant to that article is the nature of Scratch itself, how 
it was designed specifically to deal with the very different cognitive 
process children use relative to adults, a progression Piaget called 
"genetic epistemology".

A purely visual language, Scratch can be used by younger audiences that 
would have a hard time memorizing hundreds of commands and functions. 
If you haven't used Scratch it's an interesting beast, well worth the 
exploration.

Scratch is also free, both "as in beer" and "as in freedom", so it's 
infinitely cheaper than using LiveCode, a key factor with today's school 
budgets.

I would love to see a compelling business case for a free LiveCode 
product; as a consultant nothing would benefit me more.  But after 
trying it for several years RunRev was unable to make it work, and even 
the collective wisdom of this community has been unable to come up with 
a solution.

As a business owner myself, I recognize the fundamental necessity of 
positive ROI:  any project that can't pay for itself will become 
inviable.  In the absence of any plan which would make RunRev's funding 
such a free product profitable, or even just break-even, the company now 
offers only paid products.

All that said, it's worth noting that even with only paid products and 
only products that require scripting, the company continues to make 
considerable progress in education - a very few examples, pulled from 
recent entries in the company blog:

LiveCode Teacher Training Day in Edinburgh
<http://www.runrev.com/company/runrev-blog/livecode-teacher-training-day-in-edinburgh->

LiveCode Created App is no. 1 Hottest Educational App on iTunes
<http://www.runrev.com/company/runrev-blog/livecode-created-app-is-no-1-hottest-educational-app-on-itunes->

How to teach programming to students today
<http://www.runrev.com/company/runrev-blog/how-to-teach-programming-to-students-today>

Students around Edinburgh Ready to Dive into Programming with LiveCode
<http://www.runrev.com/company/runrev-blog/students-around-edinburgh-ready-to-dive-into-programming-with-livecode>

Join Us at The Education Show
<http://www.runrev.com/company/runrev-blog/join-us-at-the-education-show>

LiveCode in The Times Educational Supplement
<http://www.runrev.com/company/runrev-blog/livecode-in-the-times-educational-supplement>


For a company that pays its bills selling software, that's pretty good 
progress.

Other companies can make money from other revenue streams, which may 
help them justify costs for such things.

Given relative resources available to the respective companies, perhaps 
the better title for this thread would have been:

   Why killing HyperCard was killing an investment in the future

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World
  LiveCode training and consulting: http://www.fourthworld.com
  Webzine for LiveCode developers: http://www.LiveCodeJournal.com
  Follow me on Twitter:  http://twitter.com/FourthWorldSys