Suggestion: Non-Appbuilding Community Edition

[Bernard Devlin]

Actually I wasn't particularly addressing you. For one thing, I'll wager
you've got hundreds of posts on the Forum.

On Mon, Sep 6, 2021 at 7:09 PM Lagi Pittas via use-livecode <
use-livecode at lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> My biggest "whine" is not the ending of the open source initiative - it's
> the fact that OUR biggest competitors (XOJO and B4X) have non expiring
> licences and at least a non time limited "trial" version.
>
>
Xojo and B4X are not my competitors. I am not LC Ltd. If you think these
technologies are so interchangeable I don't know why you're persisting with
the one that runs "like treacle".  I don't have a license for either of
those Basics.  And if you see them as "our competitors", why fund the
competition.  Very strange IMO.  LC fits into my philosophy of software
design at a specific location (I have never even tried to run it inside a
webserver, there are better technologies for that).

Your biggest whine is that the IDE "runs like treacle", even on beefy
hardware.  I asked for evidence of this, because in 20 years on non-beefy
hardware I've never seen it.  I'm still waiting to see what problem you've
got.  No-one else appears to recognize your complaint.


> Calling people parasites because they want the open source to continue (but
> with better differentiation) is not constructive.
>

People who  wanted open source to continue had 8 years of opportunities.  I
used to muse every time Panos sent out an email with "easy fixes to the
documentation" .... hmm, how many of those who contribute nothing financial
to this project can even be bothered to spend some time fixing some
documentation.  Clearly most people wanted open source so they could spend
their time and money on other things than supporting the technology with
either finance or money.  Within a couple of months of InterBase opening
their source code and entirely new database project was born. Not so with
Livecode.

What word do you use for people who take and take for 8 years then have a
hissy fit when they are told they aren't getting any more freebies because
their freebies have just been a drain on resources.

The starter system is easy (very easy).
>

LC is the business of LC Ltd. It's not your business. It's not my business.
Please feel free to look back over my posts in the last 20 years to see
where I've told them how to run their business. The one time I did contact
Heather, was to draw her attention to one of the whining threads on the
Forum, and to pull from it a trio of suggestions for improvement.  But I
did this in private rather than create lots of public whining with which to
put off potential/actual users.


> The future is the kids and the only way of capturing them is to make it
> easy for them to send out a link to a program they wrote to friends and
> family to show off what they did.
>

I very much doubt this.  There are dozens of less impressive technologies
than LC for kids to learn. "Worse is better", and all that. IMO the idea
that we need to "think of the children" is a myth. I've seen this topic of
Livecode and Education discussed for 20 years.

As there are some on this list who have been around even longer than I, it
seems like we should have an answer to this question: how many people have
you encountered here or on the Forum who learned about LC through formal
schooling (school or university) and are using it in later life?  In my
case it is zero. I cannot recollect anyone on this mailing list or on the
Forum who has stated that this was their introduction to Livecode.

If it turns out that there is no such person, then there's little point in
LC Ltd worrying about the idea that this is a channel that brings in new
long-term users (as those on the Forum claim). The only reason for
providing any version aimed at those in education should be the money such
a thing would bring in as an end in itself.


> The biggest error livecode has made all these years is not creating a
> "working" storefront that doesn't look like it has been totally given up
> on.
>

*De gustibus non est disputandum.  *I think there's very, very little wrong
with Livecode.com.  What is it that you have tried to do with their website
that you couldn't do?  Maybe you don't like the font, or the text, or the
graphics, or whatever.  But such generic criticism is of no help and is
just barking at the moon.

IMO the most important thing for them to add to the website is a few short
(hi-res) videos showing some apps being developed in LC.  That was one of
the few *specific and constructive points* I made (in private) to Heather.

Regards, Bernard