Why is LiveCode not recognized more as an app developer language?

[stam]

It’s not about the multiple windows vs single window.
The IDE is not without its issues.

From the little I’ve seen, the new IDE improves on a lot of these (or promises to anyway).

I’m not going to list the issues I encounter daily here, because frankly i know this will be met with denial and I tire of responses pontificating the current “perfect” state of the IDE, which really just boil down to “Well that’s what I know so it must be best”.

I just hope to see improvements in the many friction points I encounter daily with the current IDE…

[FourthWorld]

It’s not about the multiple windows vs single window.
The IDE is not without its issues.

Seems like we're on the same page (or card, as it were).

LC doesn't need to be something else. But it does need to be a solid version of what it is.

Some UX and UI refinements that often amount to little more than paper cuts would go a long way to making the current incarnation more usable.

[richmond62]

I’m not going to list the issues I encounter daily here

That is a pity, and re denials: I do feel that everyone's experience with LiveCode is highly individual,
so my saying "I don't see that" doesn't mean it doesn't exist, all it means is "I don't see that."

Certainly a general list of 'issues' contributed to by any one would be quite informative.

[jacque]

Here's one actionable suggestion off the top of my head which could be part of an in-your-face-oh-yes-we're-fully-owning-the-weidness content strategy:

That reminds me of your response when I was resisting moving to MC when HC died. I complained that the icons were hideous and you said, "Oh yes, aren't they though? But in MC you can make your own."

So I tried it, and haven't looked back.

[aliciasmith23]

It is surprising how LiveCode remains somewhat under the radar in the app development world. Its intuitive, English like syntax and cross platform capabilities make it a powerful contender. Perhaps its relative obscurity stems from a lack of aggressive marketing or a preference for more mainstream languages. Nevertheless, LiveCode's potential is undeniable. For those seeking versatile solutions, especially in the realm of Android application development, exploring the offerings of a proficient android application development company.

[dunbarx]

Alicia.

How long have you been using LC? Do you have a license? How would you classify yourself in terms of expertise? I myself am an aged hobbyist.

I ask because your post, your first one and out of the blue, is pertinent since regulars here wonder how many LC users go unnoticed and unknown. All this to try to determine the the health of the platform and the state of the brand.

Craig

[Francesco77]

I think what would really help make LC more well-known and popular with students and teachers would be a model similar to what I experienced with YoYo-GameMaker.

I needed a tool some time ago to program some small educational games for my students.

In my search for a suitable tool that exports easily to Windows, macOS, Android and iOS, I came across YoYo-Gamemaker - along with LiveCode.

GameMaker is completely free to use. Only if you want to export to one of the known platforms, you need a corresponding license.

I find this method super good. You can try the program without further costs until you are sure that you can achieve the desired result with it.

When you know that you want to work with the program, you buy a license, which is also well affordable even for small developers.

Meanwhile, some of my students also work with GameMaker, which is free for them, and have a lot of fun with it.

It would be great if there was something similar for LiveCode. The price tag - even for testing and trying it out - is a not insignificant obstacle to its use in schools.

[smelly]

I haven't used LiveCode for the last 3 to 4 years. I gave up trying to get it to work as expected. The LC display of its tool bars and palettes were horribly misaligned and I could not get a fix from this forum or LC. It worked fine with a single monitor but not two monitors with one in portrait mode.
Long before that bug I could not get any help resolving an issue where my iPhone would not produce any audio from my LC apps, yet other iPhone apps produced audio just fine (VLC for example). After months of struggle it turned out that LC would not play my music if the audio toggle switch on side of the iPhone was turned off. No one on this forum nor LC support, could resolve that issue. I stumbled upon the fix myself months later. Lack of professional competent support on this and other forums and from LiveCode, is a major reason LC is not deemed a viable programming language.

HOWEVER, the primary reason I quit using LC is that it does not have an open source free version that I can use to create apps for desktop and iOS and Android, which I can use to create commercial applications which—only I have the rights to, rather than donate all my hard work freely to the world. So I turned to learning Python, which I can use FREE to create apps for desktops and mobile, for both Mac & Windows.

Why is LiveCode not recognized more? Because it's not really free for professional app development. Of the top 20 programming languages in use, see https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/, only two of them require payment for the right to develop commercially licensed applications. LiveCode is not even among the top 100 languages listed on TIOBE. For me, the main reason to reject LiveCode is that I cannot use it for any serious software devopment other than a personal project. It's just not ready for use in the commercial world where there are free languages, such as Python, that I can use for profit and not just for play.

[stam]

I haven't used LiveCode for the last 3 to 4 years. I gave up trying to get it to work as expected. The LC display of its tool bars and palettes were horribly misaligned and I could not get a fix from this forum or LC. It worked fine with a single monitor but not two monitors with one in portrait mode.
Long before that bug I could not get any help resolving an issue where my iPhone would not produce any audio from my LC apps, yet other iPhone apps produced audio just fine (VLC for example). After months of struggle it turned out that LC would not play my music if the audio toggle switch on side of the iPhone was turned off. No one on this forum nor LC support, could resolve that issue. I stumbled upon the fix myself months later. Lack of professional competent support on this and other forums and from LiveCode, is a major reason LC is not deemed a viable programming language.

HOWEVER, the primary reason I quit using LC is that it does not have an open source free version that I can use to create apps for desktop and iOS and Android, which I can use to create commercial applications which—only I have the rights to, rather than donate all my hard work freely to the world. So I turned to learning Python, which I can use FREE to create apps for desktops and mobile, for both Mac & Windows.

Why is LiveCode not recognized more? Because it's not really free for professional app development. Of the top 20 programming languages in use, see https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/, only two of them require payment for the right to develop commercially licensed applications. LiveCode is not even among the top 100 languages listed on TIOBE. For me, the main reason to reject LiveCode is that I cannot use it for any serious software devopment other than a personal project. It's just not ready for use in the commercial world where there are free languages, such as Python, that I can use for profit and not just for play.

Your post misses the point of this thread a bit.

It’s not whether you, as an individual developer, would recommend LC for your niche area. It’s whether this is recognised as a language in general, which according to GitHub it is not - but that is LC ltd’s fault for not doing the work needed to get it recognised. If XOJO can, LC definitely should. XOJO is also a paid language in the same space as LC, but in my mind much more problematic, but it is recognised as a language.

There’s a lot of things to unpick in your long post… and while I understand frustrations borne out of your own pet peeves, that’s exactly what they are: your pet peeves.

The fact that LC isn’t the right tool for you does not mean it’s not fit for purpose otherwise. One should use the right tool for the job, and if another tool is better for your specific job, then great.

Or is it that it’s not free? That seems to weigh heavily with you. I agree free is nice but I personally would be happy to pay for something that makes my life easier, and for me I am much more productive in LC than in Python and as my time is very limited there is no realistic option for me. Time is money as well and as I can’t spend more time I spend money instead.

So as far as my use case goes, that side of your argument doesn’t apply - which again comes back to the fact that just because it doesn’t suit you doesn’t mean it can’t be used for serious development and shouldn’t be recommended in general.


I agree more polish is needed for the IDE (the toolbar issue you mention is probably the revMenubar issue Bernd kindly provided a fix for, I’m not referring to that). We’ll see what comes out of the long awaited and delayed LC10. While not a good fit for every programming need out there LC is not a toy and I would recommend it for general use, inasmuch as it can do most things in a fraction of the development time.

But again these are my views and dont apply to all.

[richmond62]

That does read as an individual's personal thingy: mainly the gap between their expectations and what LiveCode provides.

As such it comes a cross as petty and naive.

The fact that LiveCode may not satisfy my expectations does in no way stop it being a 'real' programming environment, and the fact that I either don't have the money, or am not prepared to stump up the money to but a licence, is, surely, my problem not LiveCode's.

I laughed my socks off at this:

it turned out that LC would not play my music if the audio toggle switch on side of the iPhone was turned off

as I always thought that an audio toggle switch's role WAS to turn audio off and on: and if an audio toggle switch was turned OFF one would not expect to hear audio on one's device.

I can think of lots of reasons why LiveCode is not recognised as . . . but that person makes the daft mistake of equating his/her requirements with a more serious and general question.

[jacque]

I laughed my socks off at this:

it turned out that LC would not play my music if the audio toggle switch on side of the iPhone was turned off

.

I found that amusing too. That was a comon tech support question back when iPhones were new.

[NoN']

I'm just discovering this discussion and its initial question today, and reading a lot of the posts, it seems to me that the most obvious reason hasn't yet been mentioned (sorry if I'm wrong):

If Licecode isn't more widely recognized as an app developer language it's simply because it's not a programming language!

Ok Ok, I'm making a rather provocative start, but it's not totally meaningless.

Livecode is in fact not a programming language, but first and foremost an application that lets you create other applications using a high-level language whose name isn't exactly clear (xTalk, Livecode... ?). It's a real source of confusion.
And as long as the software/IDE bears the same name as the language and, above all, the name of the company selling the software, there will always be confusion.

If "Livecode" were just an app developper language, then we could port it and use it freely, outside the Livecode.LTd IDE to build computer programs.

For example, we could simply use it in an html page and manually write a piece of script to perform a specific task:

here's a javascript function...

Code: Select all

function resetGame() {
  guessCount = 1;
  let resetParas = document.querySelectorAll(".resultParas p");
  for (let i = 0; i < resetParas.length; i++) {
    resetParas[i].textContent = "";
  }

...which could easily be converted into Livecode language and called up in the same way as a javascript script (approximate translation).

Code: Select all

function resetGame()
  put 1 into guessCount
  put line 1 to 1000 of resulParas into resetParas 
  repeat with i = 1 to the number of lines in resetParas 
    put "" into line i of resetParas
  end repeat
end resetGame 

The name of a language is not insignificant, which is why I chose the example of javascript. Indeed, from now on, we should no longer speak of "javascript", but rather "ECMAscript", which absolutely nobody does, not even the tables ranking the most widely used languages!

Perhaps we should give this language a new lease of life and a new audience by giving it a new name, independent of the software that uses it?

Renaud

[FourthWorld]

Perhaps we should give this language a new lease of life and a new audience by giving it a new name, independent of the software that uses it?

"Livecoding LiveCode in LiveCode by LiveCode with live code" not clear enough for ya'?

Well, then there's "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."

[stam]

Livecode is in fact not a programming language, but first and foremost an application that lets you create other applications using a high-level language whose name isn't exactly clear (xTalk, Livecode... ?). It's a real source of confusion.

Not sure I either understand, or if I do, agree.

You can most certainly write LC code (with syntax colouring, autoindenting and even syntax error checking) outside of LC. I use VSCode extensively for this. You can also build an entire app in code, without using the IDE for this - that’s just a convenience for developers.

You can’t run code or create an app just from the code without the interpreter, but that is no different from other languages like Python.

The only difference is that Python’s interpreter is free and distributable, and as a result made to be open to connect to. But take away the interpreter and no more Py.

And really Python is just an app that lets you run code or create other apps. The real difference is that the LiveCode IDE (Integrated Development Environment) is truly integrated, but that’s for the user’s convenience, not a requirement from the language itself.

It’s also not so different from compiled languages. Again the linkers/compilers are free but without them, code would just be obscure text in a text file.



I feel this is an area we’re LC has done less well, obviously influenced by HyperCard, which was created in a era of low-level, difficult languages, to present this as a low-code/no-code solution trying to attract casual users. We all know code can easily run into thousands of lines.

I had this experience when talking to a product manager for a Cloud SQLite startup: They had never heard of LC before and a gander at the webpage led them immediately to believe this was a “low-code/no-code situation”.

This is not correct - it is an easy-code situation, but getting them to understand that was impossible - and this is due to how the IDE is presented.



I can’t help but feel you may be suffering with the same misapprehension. You can write an entire LC app 100% in code without the IDE although that would be tedious. The IDE is there to make it easier for you, that’s all.

What you (if I understood you correctly) and the Cloud SQLite gang think is probably true of LiveCode Create, but not of LiveCode. Just because a language is easy does not mean it’s not a language. And unlike LiveCode Create, everything can be created in code.

So I would strongly suggest LiveCodeScript is a language…
I agree that calling everything “LiveCode” is confusing, this is a business decision from LC, but, to be clear, this entire thread is referring to LiveCodeScript, not the IDE…

Maybe I misunderstood and your post was about the branding issue of what to call the language (I only used LiveCodeScript because that is the default extension when creating script-only stacks). But that is a branding issue and semantics.

At least that’s my view…

[dunbarx]

Stam.

I miss then moniker "TransScript".

Craig