Us and them? [was Re: Livecode Dictionary]

[Richard Gaskin]

Graham Samuel wrote:

 > It’s OK, I think, to provide more facilities for the ‘big picture’
 > professionals, such as making it easier to use version control and
 > to work in teams, and to have an ever-expanding set of functions
 > and even platforms; but it’s not OK if this is at the expense of
 > the kind of user who doesn’t want to distort the way LC works,
 > for example by deprecating stacks that contain both scripts and
 > UI elements...

Stack files have not been in any way deprecated.  Nothing has change in 
that regard.

What has happened is exactly what you describe as ideal above: new 
capabilities have been added that support a much wider range of uses for 
LC, while preserving the methods in place for decades.  Definite win-win.

I think some of this (a lot of this?) sort of discussion comes down to 
deciding who is "us" and who is "them"?

I used to be squarely in what I presume is the "us" camp, and in many 
ways I still prefer the simplicity of with-the-grain xTalk workflows.

But I also work in other languages on things outside of LC, and the 
tools and habits acquired there are also valuable.

Being able to adapt old habits, and enhance the learning of new ones, by 
mixing the best of what I learn from each has become a rewarding adventure.

In fact, I'm no longer sure which camp I'm in, since I'm not fully "us" 
and not full "them", but a mish-mash of both and a lot of moving around 
in between those polarities.

As long as each of us can use the workflows we prefer, does the 
distinction matter?



 > A typical casualty of this conflict is the cancelling of the ability
 > of these ordinary users to add notes to the dictionary, without
 > apparent thought for the negative consequences.

I'm surprised no one in the community has made a LC Plugin that acts as 
a custom GitHub client for LC docs.

That would seem the best of both worlds: a pleasant UI that's as easy to 
use as it is to build, and those who prefer working directly on the docs 
in Markdown can continue to do so.

A custom GitHub client for the main repository solves many problems, 
chiefly (and so far uniquely) the issue of having learning materials 
spread out across an ever-broader range of disparate systems.  All the 
advantages of multiple intput streams, with the advantage of a single 
output stream that we all have installed and available with LC.

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Systems
  Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
  ____________________________________________________________________
  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com                http://www.FourthWorld.com