LC & Catalina; macOS 10.15.x; Xcode 11.3.x; iOS 13.3.x support ???

[Richard Gaskin]

Pi Digital wrote:

 > I had posted this originally to the dev-livecode list but I thought
 > (accurately) I wouldn’t get a reponse from that.

Yep, the dev list has been more or less retired since LC went open 
source. I'm not sure why it's still even up, except that a few people 
wanted it when they last asked if it should remain. So it's running, but 
few read it.  This list is a good choice.


 > I currently have a client breathing heavily behind me because I can’t
 > supply what they need. And by now I should be able to. My competitors,
 > they’re new suppliers, are able to.

Happens all the time. I've formed relationships with others employing 
complimentary skills and tooling for that purpose, bringing their 
specialties on board for things outside of my core services.

And sometimes the project as a whole is sufficiently outside of what I 
do that I just refer the client to another qualified professional.

No one does everything.  Relationships bridge the gaps the 
cross-training or interest haven't yet filled.

It's a big world, and software is eating it. Lots of opportunity for 
nearly any specialty or mix of specialties.


 > I would be trying to fix the LC issues with HTML deployment myself
 > if I wasn’t so bogged down with the workarounds on top of workarounds
 > that are so messing with my head.

When LC's HTML export was first announced, I read up on Emscripten and 
how it works.  Impressive for certain things, but when the result is 
running a scripting language inside of a canvas object interpreted by 
another scripting language, I figured I'd stick with brushing up my JS.

I know at least one developer who has been using it profitably for a 
very specialized service. I'm glad for him.  But my own needs are in a 
different field, with a different market, and working closer to the 
browser engine is a better fit for my own work.

Similarly, I used to use LC for systems administration, until I learned 
bash.  I can get the work done with LC, but I can get it done more 
quickly with the language designed specifically for that niche.

LC's sweet spot is xplat desktop GUIs, where it's unbeatable.  It's a 
good contender for mobile apps, and as a server tool*. Personally, I 
don't even think about HTML export, even though I helped fund the 
project to see whee it might go.

And even though I spend some time in JS and bash, much of that work has 
at least some LC mixed in along the way.  There's always some GUI tool, 
or some text processing for which awk feels awkward.  Lots of choices, 
combined and recombined as needed.

LC is nice, but it's not every language.  There are hundreds, with more 
each year, because each is contributing a unique mix of strengths the 
others don't have.

Back in the day I used to even write object store systems in LC (think 
MondgoDB scaled down for shared-hosting CGI).  Not bad, and on two 
projects I still use it, but for new work I'm more inclined spin up a 
VPS and install Mongo or Couch.

Same with server management.  I started down the DIY road with an 
LC-based system and some clever (if I do say so myself <g>) use of the 
bash "expect" program.  Fun and all, but ultimately a lot of work to 
handle every edge case or new capability.  And all the while Ansible is 
sitting there waiting to be used by those who need a daemonless option, 
or go old-school with a few bash scripts.

You know how much I enjoy and value LiveCode.  But I don't use it for 
everything.  I use it where it's the best choice for the task at hand.



* RE server use: This is one area where I feel LiveCode's potential has 
yet to be fully realized by the world. Consider Ruby or Python: fine 
languages, but rarely used as CGIs before Rails and Django.  Now Ruby on 
Rails has grown to such an audience that it's almost single-handedly 
justified returning to CGI in many shops. LiveCode performs roughly on 
par with both of them, but with chunk expressions - most of what we need 
to do on servers is text manipulation, and for that LC rocks!

Our community is blessed with Ralf Bitter's tremendously excellent 
revIgniter framework.  Modeled on WebIgniter, it's an excellent toolkit 
for a great many tasks.

But the PHP world has more than one framework.  Same with Python.

I'd like to believe that as we build out great server apps with LC, out 
of this activity will emerge new and useful libraries, tools, and 
frameworks that can help the rest of the world come to appreciate the 
benefits of scripting in LiveCode.

Same with streaming desktop apps, so easy in LC, so valuable to users, 
so underutilized...

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