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

[FourthWorld]

A big half-price offer just ended.

But these offers are preaching to the converted.

Not entirely. Remember that to download the OSS edition you had to give an email address.

Those people are already in the sales funnel.

The question Stam and Richmond are asking is how they feed the funnel.

I see lots of remarketing, but I don't recall seeing marketing in years, aside from one interview in The Register in September.

[stam]

Hell, i only accidentally found out about black Friday deals because I happened to visit the mothership's website at the time,

Did you opt out of emails? I get promotional emails all the time. A big half-price offer just ended.

No idea. I toyed with LC briefly about 5-6 years ago, didn’t really get in with it and dumped it. I may well have opted out of emails at the time but have no recollection…
I’ll have a look around my account details to see if this can be changed. No biggie about the half price deal though, I went for the “all in” Black Friday deal.

But as Richard and Richmond say this is just cannibalising the existing market unless projected to non-LC-users…

[dunbarx]

@Stam.

I toyed with LC briefly about 5-6 years ago, didn’t really get in with it and dumped it

??? You seem to be a very active participant.

Craig

[stam]

@Stam.

I toyed with LC briefly about 5-6 years ago, didn’t really get in with it and dumped it

??? You seem to be a very active participant.

Craig

Only in the last year… but I obviously made an impression

Actually it was because of an offhand comment on a completely different forum that mentioned the lockdown offers that prompted me to have a second look and I got into it more properly. Serendipity…

[richmond62]

For a slightly odd reason this morning I ended up here:

https://livecode.com/resources/guide/

and clicked on the Programming a User Interface item

and noticed that while it is supposed to be about user interfaces there
is not a picture in sight: that struck me a very odd indeed.

Without illustrative images would-be learners of LiveCode are going
to get turned off fairly quickly.

[rinzwind]

I came by after years to see any progress. Woohoo... that pricing is indeed insane (IMHO). I guess they copied the Embarcadero (Delphi) model: squeezing existing customers instead of getting new ones. I started with LC 5+, that was kind of fun and I expected nice improvements and additions in the near future. It did not happen for me, even so far to say as I was disillusioned. I still do not see real world software made with LC. Mostly the same old customer stories with little to show and stuck with stubborn HyperCard dogma's. Well let's take another good look.

[richmond62]

1. The removal of the Open Source Version.

2. Price.

3. No obvious effort at marketing to the educational sector.

4. No obvious effort at marketing to anyone beyond the "in crowd" who already use LC.

5. Bizarre inconsistency in terms of versions, pricing, and capabilities over time.

I understand the reasons for #1 (even thought I do not either agree or like it), but I also believe that LiveCode
has to offer something free, and push it like blazes . . .

I was in Edinburgh a week ago and sent a message about a meeting re a desire on my part to pitch an idea for
a free, educational variant of LiveCode.

That message was not acknowledged.

As an educator with over 30 years of experience (plus 3 University qualifications) I hope I know
what I am talking about, and could, in a meeting, make a fairly powerful argument for the
very simple idea I can only really outline in a written form here:

1. A version of LiveCode that has:

1.1. No widgets.

1.2, No LCB.

1.3. No possibility to make standalones.

2. A dedicated Newbie/Educational page containing extensive links to all the many, many hundreds of
simple stacks that many LC users have built up over the last 25 years.

This would be effectively the same as the free version of RevMedia that was released for a while
quite a long time ago.

[stam]

Point 4 I agree with. Lots of work to do there to attract devs and hobbyists.

Re: education… if this is going to increase adoption of LC, that is by definition a long term aim and far from guaranteed.

Or to put it differently, what percentage of your students over the last 30 years have gone on to become paying customers for LiveCode?
Or what major educational institution is going to pour money into licensing a language the vastest majority of developers worldwide haven’t even heard of?

What is the motivation for the company to essentially build a new product if there is no profit (financially or adoption-wise) in near-to-medium term?

LC have a limited pot they have to use as best as they see fit to grow the company and stay competitive. Which means making profit.

While education is laudable and ideally would be supported, they would be looking at a small potential of increasing profits in a decade from now. Or they could spend the same resources on stuff now to try and attract new users.

The change in licensing was a bold move; but companies that are financially comfortable with a secure future don’t make bold moves, if you catch my drift…

[richmond62]

What is the motivation for the company to essentially build a new product if there is no profit (financially or adoption-wise) in near-to-medium term?

However to make a 'RevMedia redux' ALL that should be needed is to disable a proportion of the source code for standard LC: so,
no 'new product', just a castrated version of LiveCode.

As to adoption . . . a week's worth of try-out is not really going to attract many people as it takes quite some considerable time
and effort to get up-to-speed with LiveCode.

and hobbyists

at that price?

[richmond62]

The most bizarre thing, from my point of view, is that I am getting lots of advertisements for
'Enhancements' for LiveCode . . .

. . . which, quite obviously, presuppose I already own a commercial licence to LiveCode itself . . .

Now, why do I have a funny feeling that there is no point in attempting to sell someone a cart
unless they already have a horse to pull the thing?

[FourthWorld]

Mini-poll: anyone here read Geoff Moore's Crossing the Chasm, or The Gorilla Game?

[richmond62]

what percentage of your students over the last 30 years have gone on to become paying customers for LiveCode?

Probably none, but probably not through any fault of their own.

Probably because the people who pay programmers generally want C++, C#, Java, Python and so on.

So . . . whether students, hobbyists, or companies, the marketing is singularly "non".

[FourthWorld]

Now, why do I have a funny feeling that there is no point in attempting to sell someone a cart
unless they already have a horse to pull the thing?

That's the remarketing I referred to earlier, different from marketing (and cannibalization). Not without value, but only part of a complete breakfast.

The good news is that LC Ltd has apparently hired someone for social media outreach, a good step in the right direction.
https://twitter.com/happymaan/status/15 ... F_vZw&s=19

[richmond62]

Slightly tangentially . . . [what me, surely not?]

I have removed this post on advice: suffice it to say it was about another xTalk
IDE that seems to have fallen by the wayside.

[richmond62]

The good news is that LC Ltd has apparently hired someone for social media outreach, a good step in the right direction.

I sincerely hope so, and I would like to wish Radhamanalan the very best in his new job.
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