I have taken quite some time to write this, and the reason that I have
taken the trouble is that, oddly enough, I both believe in Runtime
Revolution, and have put a very significant amount of time and effort
into learning how to get the thing to do things over the last 14
years.
Had I come to it just before the Open Source Kickstarter campaign I
don't think I would have bothered, and I don't think I would be
working
with LiveCode just now.
I appreciate the time you have taken - and, indeed, I appreciate your
ongoing support (which you clearly still give unconditionally it seems,
even though you are perhaps not entirely enamoured with the way we go
about things!).
Indeed, the fact you have taken this time suggests that we (from the
technical point of view) have failed to a certain degree to communicate
adequately what we are doing and the path we are taking to achieve it.
I'm not going to go into specific details or responses to your direct
questions just now as that would take longer than I perhaps have on an
idle Sunday evening whilst my other half is working - but there is
obviously a communication issue here we need to address and we will in
time.
In the meantime, however, please believe me when I say that no
KickStarter goals have been forgotten - they are just taking longer to
achieve than we had originally hoped. Indeed, in the process of
attempting to achieve them we did decide to go down a slightly different
route than we had originally intended.
The reality is that the scope of what LiveCode is, and indeed we want it
to be, is so wide that the current rift between engine and script cannot
continue if we are to keep up with the pace of evolution of the software
industry. We have an engine written in what I would term C++ish (the
codebase goes back 25 years or so at this point), and we have an IDE
written in what we term LiveCode Script (LCS). C++ is not a forgiving
task-master and in reality if you are using LiveCode you are probably
doing so to avoid using C++ or other lower-level languages to a certain
degree.
Therefore, as a result, we are in a situation where the people who
perhaps would be best to help evolve the platform find it difficult to
do so having to rely on those who have C++ abilities (and, indeed,
understand how the engine works!). This disconnect directly reflects the
more fundamental problem which LiveCode is intended to solve - 'Everyone
Can Code' is an ambitious goal, certainly, but the way by which it works
is having a high-level system which is tailored towards individual
domains (black-boxes tied together with a flexible language for
composing and expressing algorithms that act on them).
The solution we came up with is widgets. We are trying to raise the
level at which the majority of what you currently consider to be 'the
engine' is written so that there isn't that rather large chasm between
the way the the functionality you use everyday is written and the
functionality you build atop it. By raising the level of language in
which 'the engine' is written, we both gain rapidity of development for
ourselves, but also (perhaps more importantly) raise the ability of the
LiveCode community as a whole to introspect on and also adapt and
improve what we do.
Of course, I say 'try' here - but there is no try. It works, it really
does work. Even in its nascent form LCB is proving to be a highly useful
and productive way to implement the things people really need and it can
only get better as we iterate on its feature-set and its gradual
unification with LiveCode Script.
--
Mark Waddingham ~ m...@livecode.com ~ http://www.livecode.com/
LiveCode: Everyone can create apps
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