Was: URGENT: MergGoogle no longer works on iOS: CLIENTS VERY UNHAPPY

Richmond Mathewson richmondmathewson at gmail.com
Sat May 26 06:19:26 EDT 2018


Well, Sean, your message is very long and filled with a lot of stuff; 
so, at the risk of being a bore,
I'll take a long bit replying to all your points; especially as that's 
what I feel it deserves.

On 25/5/2018 7:07 pm, Sean Cole (Pi) via use-livecode wrote:
> Dear All
>
>
> This is going to be a long one so I’ll break it down into sections to make
> it easier to read and get the points across (hopefully).
>
> // Thanks //
> First off, a great deal of thanks has to go out to everyone who contacted
> both during and after the incident on May 2nd. It is overwhelming to see
> the attempts of support offered over the last couple of weeks. Thank you,
> each one of you.
>
>
> // GoFundMe //
> This, too, is overwhelming. A little disturbing too as it was embarked on
> by people who know very little about me or the facts behind the situation.
> Indeed, some of those provided here and on the GFM site were distorted from
> the truth of the matter. I would never have asked for this or expected
> it... but the generosity demonstrated by so many in the community is so
> very much appreciated.
>
> It is necessary, though, to set a few matters straight to make sure all
> understand what actually took place and why things got the way they did.
>
>
> // Background //
> On a personal note, I’ve suffered from clinical depression, diagnosed and
> medicated since ‘03. During that time I have had 5 serious mental (nervous)
> breakdowns. Only one of these had been work-related. What I suffered this
> time was only a half breakdown it transpires and has been ‘easier’ to
> recover from. My wife, Judith, has been a major contributing factor in this.

I am also familiar with a lot of this (mind you, to be fair, with the 
possible exception of people
who spend their lives herding sheep and cattle up in the mountains, I'm 
sure everyone has had
some seriously purple patches in their lives).

I am an ex-cult member, and still suffer some of the psychological 
effects 36 years later!

snip
>
> // The Incident //

snip

Yup: similar situation about 16 years ago with some educational software 
in Scotland.

> // The Repercussions //

Well, in my case, just someone shouting at me, saying things that were 
unbelievably foul-mouthed,
and, inevitably, loss of considerable income for 6 months' hard slog.

>
> // The Abyss //

Thank God I'm a Sociopath/Arrogant sausage? Conceited B. choose your term.

>
> // Lessons Learned //
> I’ve still not heard from or spoken to the client just yet.

Don't you just love it when a client just drops you, like a hot potato?

>   They will be
> unaware of the breakdown I’ve had and I’m not sure, professionally, if I
> should tell them.

Nope: don't tell them. Your Mum/Granny/Brother had a terrible something 
. . .

>   I certainly don’t feel right putting in my invoice for
> the 3-4 months work for this stage of the app as it didn’t work when they
> actually needed it.

Hang about. You did do a considerable amount of work, and according to 
your own account a large chunk of the functionality
worked; enough so that the audience seeing the quiz show was 
sufficiently fooled to belive everything was as it should be.

AND: face facts: ALL television is about smoke and mirrors: Quiz shows 
being some of the smokiest!

>   That’s the second time a LiveCode app has put me in
> this position. I would have been employed to provide the software for the
> tv show and others if it all gone as it should but that bridge is now ashes
> in the Atlantic. Thanks, LC/Google!
>
> Now I (again!) have to re-evaluate where I go from here. Certainly, my
> trust in third-party add-ons has gone and I will never again rely on them.
> I would rather rewrite my own than feel I could assume that they had
> written it correctly. Despite being distributed as part of LC, mergext is
> not open source so can’t be repaired by any of us. LC 9 is a shambles and
> still not ready for release - in its current state it’s basically still in
> beta. They seem unprepared to fix any of the project browser stuff (which
> we can’t fix easily because it’s part of the ide and they won’t accept ide
> amendments due to the fact it can’t be checked and compared using
> GitHub!!!) and instead keep adding more features elsewhere, themselves
> which don’t seem to be anywhere near completion (HTML, native java/objc,
> etc). And what have they done to the script editor, the MAIN part of LC we
> use - broken!! Little to no decent documentation or tutorials for any of
> these features. And a doc ide that makes it impossible to find the guidance
> you need.

I am a fortunate chap insofar as LiveCode works 99% for my main act [ 
Devawriter Pro ]

( although it's being poxy down in some parts of the Unicode "undergrowth" )

however, all that you have written about LiveCode and the company's 
attitude chimes in with
my own feelings.

If LiveCode are listening/reading, I would like to suggest that, instead 
of a fancy conference next year
they choose about 24 people who have been developing stuff with LiveCode 
for some time, buy them budget
air tickets and fly them to Edinburgh, drive them out to some farmhouse 
in the hills and spend a week
listening, discussing, and generally working out some important things 
to put their house in order.

> // LiveCode And/Or Bust //
> To add insult to the injury, I’d have to keep paying a subscription for
> something that struggles to work consistently. I want software I can trust.
> All software has little bugs (unexpected features) but I always come away
> from using LC feeling like it’s riddled with them, glaring ones that make
> it seemingly evident they don’t use the software themselves or else they
> would notice them - or they’re purposely ignoring them. I’ve still got bugs
> from years ago that haven’t been touched so it doesn’t inspire confidence
> to report yet more to them.

Every time I have suggested that LiveCode are going "hell for leather" 
for the bright, new future, instead of
sorting out cr*p that has been lurking in LiveCode for donkey's ages I 
have been slammed.

I have a feeling that some of them have a feeling that if they shout 
loudly enough the cr*p will
mysteriously disappear.

I am trawling endlessly and tediously through my Devawriter Pro as all 
sorts of worms have come
crawling out of the woodwork . . . when I'd far rather start 
implementing the new features I've had
planned for the last 3 years.

That's probably why, in the last 12 months, I've made about $200 for my 
product:

Because I'm not pumping out "sexy things" while overlooking the fact 
that my offering is running
round the town in laddered tights!

"Unfortunately" I suffer from a conscience.

Fortunately, I run a language school that keeps my fridge stocked.
>
> For the amount I’ve invested in LC (money, learning, voluntary bug fixing),
> I don’t feel they’ve paid back in kind. Their decision to have the next
> conf over in the far west shows their loyalty to, again, only a small part
> of the community, the rich and those already in America. Global?!?
>
> It’s so frustrating because LC is by far and away the easiest way of
> writing code for all platforms. But it just keeps letting me down in so
> many ways.

I hear you.

I could also list lots of things the language seems to miss . . .

#1 Manipulation and Generation of Sound (let's be really bitchy and 
point out that HyperCard could do that).

Let's be even bitchier and point out that I am teaching 11 year olds how 
to produce electronic music on a series of BBC Micros
from 1985 with 32k RAM and BBC BASIC!

> Someone has just asked me to build a prototype wireframe for a
> game that runs on both iOS and Roid but I’m just not sure I can put myself
> through all the heartache, what with the geometry manager being such a mess
> and the 3rd party one (again) consistently let me down losing links or
> simply not working. I’d have to write my own cross-platform/format
> ‘responsive’ library to make sure it could work on ANY device. It’s all a
> steaming pile of BS! I don’t want to have to go back to coding in Java and
> objc/swift again.
>
> Looking at the latest LC8 release, the ‘fix’ Monte did for mergGoogle
> hasn’t been added in. It’s hardly working let alone ‘Stable’ then, is it!!
>
> Rock <=> Hard-Place
>
>
> // Expectations //
>
> I’m clearly still not ready for the real-world just yet. I come away from
> ‘getting this off my chest’ feeling worse than I did when I started it a
> few days back.

I, for one, am extremely grateful to you for "getting this off your 
chest" as LiveCode DO badly need some sort
of reality check.

You should start feeling 1000 times more optimistic insofar as you have 
used a horrible situation
to sound a clarion call. 8-)

> I’m not expecting miracles or any grand gesture from LC.

I wouldn't, as, for all their talk about "Community", they leave any 
Community there is to
go its own way, while they go their's.

>   I’m
> not expecting my health to get any better (being already on the highest
> meds they’re willing to put me on - legally).

If you can start feeling good about this post, that's at least a start. :-)

>   I’m not expecting to get paid
> for my work or to get any future work from either this client or agency.
> I’m not expecting any kind of respect from my family, friends or this
> community based on my failure to manage my own life, health or business.

B*gger respect, it's not all that its cracked up to be. I'm sure that 
your family *love* you
(and your wife sounds like a Champ): and when push-comes-to-shove that's 
what really
matters.

>   I
> fully expect to continue failing with no control over being able to get
> back up from it and to continue being walked over by all those above me as
> I have been to date.
>
> I’m also fully expecting to be forgotten.

Stop being so nihilistic.

The fact that very many people have jumped to support you over this 
difficult situation shows that
you must have been doing something right.

>   I’m sure many of you already had,
> the rest of you will, given a month or so.

Utter B*llocks!

>   Eventually one day even my
> friends and family will. That is just the way of life. So none of this,
> none of what I’ve said, nothing I do will be of any consequence in the long
> run. The majority of you I suspect will have given up reading by paragraph
> three - if you even got that far.

No such luck: I read all the way through! And very glad I did too.

> I expect I’ll see you all carry on as you
> were

No, I won't, as I believe that, as well as collecting my own set of 
mental and physical scars is a useful activity in
preparing for death (the ultimate test), I belive that learning about 
other people's mental and physical scars
can also be informative and formative.

Why don't you find a completely different job for at least a year?

About 30 years ago I went how to Mum and Dad in mental tatters: I 
started working serving beer in a pub, and then, after
6 months I moved to work in a school with maladjusted children, and from 
there I clawed myself up/sideways into a place where I was happier.

-------------------

Certainly, leaving computer programming aside for a spot might help you 
take stock, and, for that matter let you see this recent fiasco
in a better light (apart from the fact that ALL the people involved in 
that quiz show have b*allsed many things up in their lives and are
just better at papering over the cracks).

1. Get the DVD of "Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang" (no, that's not a daft 
joke), and learn to laugh and love life.

https://youtu.be/GND10sWq0n0

> and LC to continue as they have.

Err, well . . .

However, it is never a good idea to be dependent on one thing.
> Regards
>
> Sean
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