The Point?

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tergolap
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Re: The Point?

Post by tergolap »

richmond62 wrote: Tue Mar 01, 2022 12:05 pm
me wrote:a very MacOS centric environment
Can you point out what makes you think that?
Certainly.
Ever since Apple borrowed the concept of a graphical user interface from Xerox they had seemed (to me) to have a clear idea how they wanted the system to behave and how the user interacts with it. This was from my experience, true with the very first MacOS (8.x) I've ever used, also applied to NeXt (even though having a BSD working under the hood), and still is valid today.

My main systems always had been Linux & Windows with all their pros/cons. Windows from a user perspective is a moving target with each release, but they try to keep consistency in their API, still supporting software from +25 years ago (if you put some effort into it).
Linux is a different beast - you won't even get a consistent user-experience, if you buy a boxed distribution. Everything depends on the bits and pieces you throw together (to hopefully have a working system in the end ;) ).

When I started using LC a few years ago, I first tried it on Windows, then Linux. I haven't used a Mac in years, just supporting family members now and then. But immediately when I started playing around with LC I felt like using a Mac.

I know, I can't explain that rationally - it's just an impression. And this leads me to the thought, that LC has inherited some of these concepts throughout it's history (and I might be totally wrong. :) )
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T.

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richmond62
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Re: The Point?

Post by richmond62 »

I know, I can't explain that rationally - it's just an impression.
I feel that if you want to make a point about this you'll have to do
slightly better than that,

I do agree:

1. That Windows is far, far better about backwards compatibility.

[In fact Apple are such a load of w*nkers I have to have 5 Macintosh computers lying around
just to be able to use programs I have invested in and don't want (or cannot afford) to pay more
to get the version that works with MacOS version "What-The-Fudge"].

2. Linux is a LEGO kit.

But, given the monolithic natures of MacOS (which I like) and Windows (which I don't like), the LEGO kit
approach of GNU-Linux distros appeals to me: and as a 'goat' I have always despised 'sheep'.

LiveCode (to call a spade a spade) are much remiss re how their IDE stacks up on Linux, and,
Yes, they are probably Mac snobs (when I visited their offices in Edinburgh some 14-15 years ago
there were ONLY iMacs . . . )

As I have written 'on the other side of the fence', their attitude towards Linux is not very good,
and considering Windows is the system used on about 90%-odd of the world's desktop computers
they should put that first (whether I like Windows or not [see above]).

HOWEVER, Paul is working (almost single-handedly) on a labour of love, and expecting more from
him than he is doing already is plain bad.

----------

As an extra: I have found that running Windows versions of LiveCode on Linux via WINE is
a good thing.
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tergolap
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Re: The Point?

Post by tergolap »

HOWEVER, Paul is working (almost single-handedly) on a labour of love, and expecting more from
him than he is doing already is plain bad.
Oh, I hope there was no misundestanding. It was not, absolutely not my intention to be inpolite or insulting. I just wanted to point out that I have the impression that long term MacOS users that have used LC/oXt, will have to re-learn both the behaviour of Linux as OS and LC/oXt on Linux.
Cheers,

T.

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richmond62
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Re: The Point?

Post by richmond62 »

It was not, absolutely not my intention to be inpolite or insulting.
I am absolutely certain it was not your intention to be impolite or insulting:

1. For starters, English is not your first language.

2. Being impolite and insulting is my speciality round these parts. 8-)

And, just as I get f*cked-off when Windows apps have been very badly ported to Macintosh (I normally stop at that
point and use the original Windows version with WINE on Linux), I can imagine that if you have lived and worked
in a Windows-centric environment how much of a pain things must be with LiveCode if it does not feel 'Windowsy".
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Re: The Point?

Post by FourthWorld »

richmond62 wrote: Sat Feb 19, 2022 7:36 pm I am well aware of those 4 freedoms, but, surely they are there in the licence of the GPL versions of LiveCode
that contain LiveCode branding.
I wasn't describing usage.

I was describing the opportunity.
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richmond62
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Re: The Point?

Post by richmond62 »

I wasn't describing usage.

I was describing the opportunity.
Well, you've got me there mate . . . if you could explain what you mean I'd be extremely grateful.
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Re: The Point?

Post by FourthWorld »

LiveCode temporarily had an open source offering, but was never an open source company per se.

To be fair, on the spectrum of companies that mix open source and proprietary works in their lineup, there's a lot of room to position oneself, from Griffin to MongoDB to Oracle.

But in both spirit and practice, LiveCode used open source more like Oracle has, a proprietary-focused company that really has no interest in the values of the GPL, using open source only as a sort of free demo version.

So to your original question of why anyone would choose OpenXtalk over unsupported copies of the defunct LC Community Edition, there are two answers:

The first is that in the very short term it barely matters, because the time bomb of native M1 support is unlikely to detonate for at least two years, there aren't enough Win users in the xTalk world to notice the serious memory issues plaguing the last few Community releases before EOL, and Linux users have become accustomed to LiveCode on that platform being unofficially semi-deprecated, in the sense that general engine fixes make their way into the Linux engine, but it's extremely rare that Linux-specific fixes or enhancements have materialized over the last several years. With the packaging change a month before LC Community was OELd Android was DOA, and iOS was never supported. In short, expectations right now are very low and easily met.

For the future, the only audience that matters with a GPL-governed package are GPL advocates.

No one needing any other license can use a GPL-governed LC. They will either buy the proprietary edition or use any of the other languages the world relies on, most of which are free and open.

So the future of this or any fork of LC Community Edition will find the audience needed for sustainability from those segments friendly to, or preferring, GPL.

This is not the same audience we've historically seen using xTalks. Which isn't bad, because a disproportionate number of remaining xTalkers are literally retiring. xTalk was born into yesteryear's world, where programming languages could still be proprietary. TIOBE reminds us every month just how much expectations have changed in the modern world.

For a fork to remain viable it needs more than one maintainer.

To attract talent and/or funding, it needs to immerse itself in the world of GPL fandom, in every aspect from process to culture.

It is the only world that can sustain a GPL-governed GUI dev tool.
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OpenXTalkPaul
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Re: The Point?

Post by OpenXTalkPaul »

richmond62 wrote: Tue Mar 01, 2022 6:32 am
elderly family member issues
I feel for you there. Over the last 12 years my wife and I have nursed her Mum, her Dad, and my Dad until they died.
Not much fun for anyone.

My Mum still soldiers on (at rising 92: what a champion).

Obviously family concerns should take precedence over anything else.

Love, Richmond.
Thanks for the understanding.
My Mom is 86 (at 51yo I'm the 'baby' out of 6) and is currently recovering from hallucination inducing pneumonia and infection that got into her neck/spine. She's still on IV antibiotics, but now home from Hospital and now doing much better.
My wife's mother doing better now as well, but she still needs heart surgery.
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OpenXTalkPaul
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Re: The Point?

Post by OpenXTalkPaul »

FourthWorld wrote: Thu Mar 03, 2022 10:29 pm With the packaging change a month before LC Community was OELd Android was DOA, and iOS was never supported. In short, expectations right now are very low and easily met.

Is it though? I assume you're referring to the Google PlayStore .abb bundles format change? I mean it's just a different package format, and the format actually existed for a long time prior to the PlayStore requirements change for new packages. If you just want to distribute an .apk Android app outside of Google's play store, I'm sure you can still do that the usual "side-loading" ways. I've also seen scripts that will convert existing apk to the new abb bundle format. I can't image changing to that format would be anything more than editing the Android SDK build command line arguments that are used to build Android standalones.
FourthWorld wrote: Thu Mar 03, 2022 10:29 pm This is not the same audience we've historically seen using xTalks. Which isn't bad, because a disproportionate number of remaining xTalkers are literally retiring. xTalk was born into yesteryear's world, where programming languages could still be proprietary. TIOBE reminds us every month just how much expectations have changed in the modern world.

For a fork to remain viable it needs more than one maintainer.

To attract talent and/or funding, it needs to immerse itself in the world of GPL fandom, in every aspect from process to culture.

It is the only world that can sustain a GPL-governed GUI dev tool.

No arguments with any of that. You hit on something that's been in the back of my mind this whole time. We xTalk users aren't getting any younger, and the user base doesn't seem to be getting any bigger lately (in fact I believe it's going in the other direction now). I can certainly imagine 'xTalk' dying out as a programing language (or family of languages) eventually if something doesn't change. That would be a travesty IMO, the thought of that is really underlying the effort I'm putting into this.
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OpenXTalkPaul
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Re: The Point?

Post by OpenXTalkPaul »

As far as Mac-centric goes...well I've certainly fallen into that category since about 1987. I have always thought that macOS (incl. Classic) was the best of the desktop platforms for user friendliness / intuitive UI, but I'm also no longer a loyal Apple fan-boy I once was. Quite the opposite now days, I've have become a big fan of those freedoms that Richard mentioned. And so I'm on this long term quest to find or build a Linux distro that 'just works' as seamlessly way macOS works. AKA, software that "Sucks Less": https://suckless.org
Of course what qualifies as sucking less may be purely subjective opinion.
I like KISS as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle
But ironically (because I live in New Jersey) not so much the New Jersey style "Worse is better" (aka "less is more") line of thinking: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worse_is_better
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richmond62
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Re: The Point?

Post by richmond62 »

The main "rat in the woodpile" as far as I can see with Linux is the way the MessageBox goes wonky and won't let you type anything into it on a fair few distros.

Of course the list of things that our friends overlooked (that's a nice way of saying they seem to have done very little indeed since 2016
re the Linux version . . . ) is very long indeed: but getting the MessageBox to behave itself would be a very good start indeed.
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richmond62
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Re: The Point?

Post by richmond62 »

In reference to New Jersey . . .

. . . my Grandfather's brother spent some time messing around there:
-
GAMCo.jpg
GAMCo.jpg (142.27 KiB) Viewed 2739 times
-
and, as a child, my father used to get a desk calendar from Uncle George every Christmas.

Uncle George laid the shit pipes in Walden, New York! :D
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OpenXTalkPaul
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Re: The Point?

Post by OpenXTalkPaul »

richmond62 wrote: Fri Mar 11, 2022 1:43 pm The main "rat in the woodpile" as far as I can see with Linux is the way the MessageBox goes wonky and won't let you type anything into it on a fair few distros.

Of course the list of things that our friends overlooked (that's a nice way of saying they seem to have done very little indeed since 2016
re the Linux version . . . ) is very long indeed: but getting the MessageBox to behave itself would be a very good start indeed.
I'm thinking that issue with the message box on Linux is somehow dependency / "window decorations" / GTK related. Possibly due to some hard-coded directory path (there is a few of those in the IDE's scripts). I suspect it's path related because at one point I had two different versions of the IDE folder on my desktop and one of them had the msg box issues and the other did not (well at least it didn't have the same issues) . I guess it could also be that I inadvertently resolved some issues somehow whilst tinkering around with the message box stack (for dark mode tweaks). I'll have to take a closer look.

If the msg box issues are related to dependencies then using a full-portable (larger) AppImage bundle on Linux should ensure that any and all of required libraries are where they're expected to be (included with the app).

On the macOS side I think to distribute OXT a signed .pkg installer would be best. Then we can have it so that a user doesn't need the admin PW to install in their ~ user / apps AND setup the dummy license file so that New User Registration stack never appears. I built a quick test .pkg to refresh my memory on how that pkg maker GUI works, but just having a pro- looking installer makes makes the whole thing feel more legit.

Windows I'm not sure what to build an installer with? So long as it can set-up needed registry keys and setup the dummy "license" file during the install, any Win installer/packager-builder-tool like that should work? Suggestions?
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richmond62
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Re: The Point?

Post by richmond62 »

Indeed: if you can, somehow, get the 'whole-shebang' to be a complete package that arrives
with all the bits-n-bobs (erm, dependencies) packaged along with it that will be brilliant.
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OpenXTalkPaul
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Re: The Point?

Post by OpenXTalkPaul »

richmond62 wrote: Sat Mar 19, 2022 8:34 am Indeed: if you can, somehow, get the 'whole-shebang' to be a complete package that arrives
with all the bits-n-bobs (erm, dependencies) packaged along with it that will be brilliant.
Researching into the Linux IDE problems, it seems like Max V. worked out some of these issues when he made .deb / rpm packages for different versions of LCC (in 2017). Extracting the contents of one of those packages (and then updating to files to the newest version) should already be close to being an "AppDir" template directory structure for building an AppImage.

I'm going to try to spend more time on the Linux side this week.
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