LiveCode Forums.

Here is something I never thought I would see ...
TIOBE Suddenly Ranks 'Scratch' as the 20th Most Popular Programming Language - headline on slashdot this morning. I near passed out!

This explains it all:
https://devclass.com/2020/04/06/kids-pr ... v-rankings

Pretty great to get on the language list without a language. If they're adding point-and-click authoring tools will Excel be added next?

Well, I dunno about Excel making the list, but as far as programming goes, I don't think scratch is so all alone, as there are a few more 'no code' IDEs/platforms out there, such as Alice (which seems to fall around 90 on the TIOBE).

The headline of the link I put up there was "Unqork CEO: Anything java coders can do, no code can do 200x faster!"

And even in SCRATCH, you do type in constants, variables, etc, so there *is* some coding, just the default block layouts are pretty much set in stone. Still surprising to see it jump 7 places in a shot though.

Like the article says, kids at home on lockdown, encouraged to do something with the computer other than surf dogs and cats on youtube.

Well, that is certainly one theory heh. I'm not so sure I would buy it in a heartbeat though.

I have no issue with Scratch per se (beyond the one its users have, meeting its walls a bit earlier than one would with something in a larger sandbox). And there are indeed many practical uses for low-code and no-code systems (and given the time I'd love to put my research and sketches on this to work building one in LiveCode, which would seem nearly ideal because at any point one could dip under the hood to also have a richly expressive language).

My comment is more a musing on the nature of language.

If we see "code" as evidence of "language", than a "no code" system is also a "no language" system.

And given the sophistication of some spreadsheet programming I've seen, I'm not so sure an expansion of TIOBE to include no code/no language systems is well served without it.

Just philosophical musings, inconsequential. Carry on...

Actually, your comment made me think about languages in general (not just programming). All language seems to share a peculiarity in this respect, i.e. visual / other. Consider this - I think it is safe to assume (and I hate that) that most language is spoken audibly, however, there is also many forms of in-audible languages (sign language comes to the top of my mind).

Then there are written forms of language, most of us likely associate things like the words you see here as written language, but there are also symbolic written languages, heiroglyphics, asian character languages, and so forth.

In all cases, it is interesting to try to define one from another, just as it is in this case. In this case, I would consider Lc for instance to be a 'written' language, and Scratch and the like to be visual languages, which is, however poorly put, all I was trying to get across

True enough. Indeed, what the kids today call "no code" we used to call "VPLs", visual programming languages.

Just because it doesn't require typing doesn't necessarily mean it isn't a language.

And I do believe the richness of spreadsheets is underappreciated.

I have been playing around with ENTRY, which is a sort of Korean knock-off of Scratch; and, like Scratch I certainly
wouldn't consider it a programming language.

https://playentry.org/#!/

BUT, (and maybe Scratch can do the same sort of thing) as you cobble something together with ENTRY's codebolcks

ouch: what a typo: forgotten what it was meant to be: possibly 'codebollocks'.

it is rendered into Python for you.

This also would seem to indicate that behind the "smoke and mirrors" the whole thing is really Python.

The theory behind this is that "the kiddywinks" can jump from ENTRY to Python . . . whether that is borne out in practise
is another thing.

If one wanted to be bitchy one could argue that LiveCode, behind the "smoke and mirrors" is C++, and
that C++, behind the "smoke and mirrors" is machine-code, and so on and so forth.

FourthWorld wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 12, 2020 5:13 pm

Just because it doesn't require typing doesn't necessarily mean it isn't a language.

You may be redefining what constitutes a programming language.

Is knocking together a house from prefabricated panels the same thing as
brick-laying?

Funny thinking Richmond, as i remember using punch cards for programming back in the day, certianly not typing in the current sense. As well, I remember programming the Altair we had built at school, again, no typing required

richmond62 wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 12, 2020 5:21 pm

FourthWorld wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 12, 2020 5:13 pm

Just because it doesn't require typing doesn't necessarily mean it isn't a language.

You may be redefining what constitutes a programming language.

Is knocking together a house from prefabricated panels the same thing as
brick-laying?

Things that aren't specifically brick-laying aren't specifically brick-laying.

But if the question is about building a house, there are many ways to do that, and brick-laying is one of them (though the least-used here in earthquake-prone California).

bogs wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 12, 2020 10:58 am

...'no code' IDEs/platforms out there...

The comments were illuminating.

But if the question is about building a house

I remember what passes for house building in some parts of the world having watched:

1. A bricklayer and co. in Scotland.

2. A house of plasterboard, chipboard and woodwool "go up" almost instantly in Illinois.

3. A shack "go up" for the night in part of Cairo [that's Cairo, Egypt, not Cairo, Illinois].

#1 was probably the longest-lasting one.