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Ask HN: Is anyone using LiveCode?

1 points by airfoil ↗ HN
http://livecode.com/

This looks like a compelling solution for cross-platform development. The scripting language is a bit verbose but it looks capable. I've skimmed the user guide and it's fairly extensive. I feel like I could whip something up pretty quickly. I'm hoping to play around with LiveCode if ever get some spare time.

I'm curious about other people's experiences with LiveCode. I'm mostly interested in whether there was a productivity gain over something like Haxe/OpenFL, C++/Qt, or Python/Kivy. I'd like to target desktop and mobile and LiveCode appears to be a good choice.

3 comments

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ColinCera
I worked with LiveCode a few years ago (it was called Revolution back then), adding features to an existing warehouse management system, and found it to be kind of a pain in the ass. It wasn't terrible, but using it was not an experience I care to ever repeat.

What would you want to build with it? Based on the alternatives you list, I'm guessing you're looking to develop games or applications with a non-traditional user interface. If that's the case, then I suggest looking at QML & Qt Quick — it's a better and more productive platform than any of your listed options, IMO.

OTOH, if you're looking to develop platform-native-looking productivity apps for both desktop and mobile, none of these are especially good choices, but LiveCode might be the best of a bad lot. (QML would be better, except it currently doesn't look or feel native on mobile — that's supposed to change in the next release for Android, but for iOS it's going to continue to utterly suck for at least another 6-9 months, if I understand their development roadmap correctly.)

airfoil
Thanks for your reply. Yes, I'm building a game/simulation so I don't need a "native" UI. I've played with QML a bit and it's very nice to work with. I've also discovered that PyQt5 can be deployed to mobile so the combination of PyQt and QML might be the best of all worlds for me (I love Python).

Based on your reply it looks like LiveCode doesn't provide a productivity advantage over Qt/QML. What was a pain in the ass about LiveCode/RunRev?

ColinCera
It's a strange language and strange framework. Not in a good way, where after you've been using it awhile you start to appreciate it, but in a bad way, where the more you use it the more annoyed you get.

A few examples, working from slightly hazy memory…

You can't just say

   foo.height = boo.height
You have to say something like

   set the height of field "foo" to the height of field "boo"
Instead of

   x = 5
You write

   put 5 into x
And so on.

There's no advantage to the LiveCode language, except perhaps for small children; it's just stupidly verbose.

It's not object-oriented, you can't define classes and instantiate objects. (Some people have tried to hack together object-like facilities, but those are non-standard and cumbersome.)

Everything (i.e., most things) is either a field or a button. Do you have a listbox in your UI? You don't refer to it as a listbox — there's no control called listbox — you refer to it as "field 'listbox'" — a minor irritant, but when there are dozens of such minor irritants, it adds up.

I gather there are thousands of happy LiveCode developers, so obviously my opinion is not gospel, but I do not envy LiveCode developers at all.