Great to hear Andre’s input! One point I hoped to make is that there is also a possibility of monetizing a help site that is created outside the mothership but coordinates and supports it. I think this kind of resource would be a significant investment and it is unrealistic to expect that the community will do this for free. Frankly, from others’ comments, it seems that there is a lot of room for additional support and marketing. Think of a combination of short tutorials backed by downloadable samples of what was presented on video. These could be backed up with more in-depth lessons at a small charge. The purpose of a short video would be dual. One for showing how to do something and second for advertising how easy it is to do some things with Livecode. What if there was a link to LC subscriptions and the mothership would pay a royalty to the site owner/manager?
LC is a great deal, with a free version available for newbies. There are opportunities, I think. Folks, please forgive me if I am overly promoting this idea. I’m an idea person, retired, and have no spare time to put a lot of energy into creating something like this. But many of you make your living from Livecode and these ideas could be mutually beneficial. I am invested in Livecode and would love to see it get more exposure and adoption. It’s a great product! Best, Bill Prothero William Prothero https://earthlearningsolutions.org > On Feb 15, 2021, at 4:56 AM, Andre Garzia via use-livecode > <use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote: > > Hi Folks, > > >> On 15 Feb 2021, at 01:46, William Prothero via use-livecode >> <use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote: >> >> Andre Garza’s post about his planning to write a book on some aspect of >> Livecode programming got me thinking about this. First, I think writing >> books is useful, but the way many busy folks access information on the >> internet is in more as smaller more targeted bites. I play jazz keyboard. A >> couple of years ago, I subscribed to a site that gave me access to jazz song >> sheet music included in video lessons lasting 30-60 minutes each. At the >> same time, from a couple other authors, I got regular (about once a week) >> emails with short free improv techniques that took me 5-10 minutes to read, >> but with offers (at a cost) that include more in-depth lessons. I find that >> I use the short lessons a lot and the longer lessons, that I have already >> paid for with my one year subscription, very little if at all. Perhaps I’m >> unusual with a very short attention span, but I suspect I'm more typical. >> I’m suggesting that there are unused marketing and support strategies that >> could be beneficial to the Livecode enterprise. Check out the macmost site >> to see what I’m talking about. > > I had a great conversation with Richard about this couple weeks ago. We > definitely feel that there is a need for more content in our community. In my > own personal and subjective opinion, a real problem with have in LiveCode > community is that the UX of the website is really bad. The site is quite > pretty, but things that are useful for LC developers are hard to find. Let me > illustrate that with an example: > > Suppose you want to check some API related thing. You go to the website, > click “Docs” on the top menu and you’re dropped in a firehose of introductory > information. That is all great, but where is the online dictionary? How you > can go from there to finding out about a specific command or function? It is > not there. The easiest way to get to the dictionary is to go back to the main > home page, scroll all the way to the bottom and get the dictionary link in > the footer. > > The content is there, but the navigation around that content is bad. The new > HTML-based dictionary in the IDE is dead slow and has other UX issues such as > what happens when you press the ENTER/RETURN key in the search field (go > ahead, try it). > > LC is a small company regardless of how much we love them. They can’t provide > solution to all our needs. It is not because they don’t want to, they have > limited resources. We can’t treat LC as we treat Apple or Microsoft. I won’t > dive into the sheer scale of the difference between those entities. We can’t > compare it with some hugely popular FOSS programming language project such as > Python. We tend to think that because it is FOSS that it is all done for free > by a small group of people, it is very easy to fall into the fallacy of > saying: “look at what those people can achieve for free!”. It is not free and > their institutional and enterprise backers provide funding and full-time > employees that are beyond what LC can sum up. > > Does that mean that LC has no place? Of course not, even with all those large > entities competing in a similar space, LiveCode still a fantastic tool and in > my own opinion, provides unrivalled productivity. > > What I’m saying is that we spend too much time focused into comparing LC with > other stuff, or complaining about the lack of something. I understand that as > paying customers we do have expectations and rights. What I want people here > to understand is that there is no successful programming language community > in which all resources are provided by a single entity. You need an ecosystem > of multiple vendors of stuff to make a community. In the case of LiveCode, we > need people creating and distributing (for a profit or not) libraries, > extensions, tools, and content. > > There is a void to be filled in our community to make it more vibrant and > useful for ourselves. I know most people here are busy developing their > products for their clients, but if we don’t at least surface what we’re > building to one another, then everything becomes too opaque. The practices of > being a LiveCode developer become a guarded secret, something that you only > grasp if you stay here long enough and talk to the correct people. > > It is with this in mind, that I decided to create content for our community. > Books are an easy value proposition. Most of our community is beyond their > thirties and have a fondness (and experience) for the written word and > documentation. It is easy to sell books here, way easier than in other > communities which are younger and prefer videos. That doesn’t mean that I > can’t provide videos as well, damn I’ve graduated with a BA in filmmaking, > I’m geared to start filming too. Books were the first step. I see myself more > as a storyteller than a developer, that is why I want to focus on content for > my own career moving forward. But that is only my own personal journey, other > people here have a different path. I just wish that more people here decide > to share their knowledge (and code) so that we can become a more vibrant > community. > > _______________________________________________ > use-livecode mailing list > use-livecode@lists.runrev.com > Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription > preferences: > http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode _______________________________________________ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
