Roland-
A few thoughts without in any way trying to detract or distract from
your wonderful post:
FileMaker and LiveCode are different products aimed at different
audiences. FileMaker is essentially a one-trick pony: it does an
excellent job at providing an easy-to-use front end for database design
and use, and probably does a better job at this than any other tool I've
seen on the market. Ever. Its scripting language gives you the ability
to string together predefined macros, and while these are mostly
adequate for any database job you are constructing, you can't modify
them or add new ones, so you sometimes end up with rather awkward
constructions and tables that may not always be linked up in intuitive ways.
LiveCode, on the other hand, is designed to be a construction kit that
provides an extensible toolbox for general-purpose applications. Some of
the database functions require more work because LC isn't designed
primarily as a database tool. It's also not designed to be a graphics
tool, although it's possible to do some amazing graphics work in LC if
you happen to be Scott Rossi. It's not a network tool, although for many
tasks all the networking features are there. And on and on.
Yes, I'd love to have FileMaker-like database-aware controls in
LiveCode. I'd love to have a lot of other things as well. Some of these
are in progress, some can be added through third-party extensions, some
need to wait for LiveCode Builder in LC8, some you may have to create
yourself or wait for someone else to do it for you.
That said, I absolutely agree that LiveCode needs that out-of-the-box
magic that hooked us all in the first place. Knowing that all that power
is in there somewhere isn't enough. That initial Aha! spark is an
empowering Maker moment and people need to experience it in their first
brush with the environment.
--
Mark Wieder
ahsoftw...@gmail.com
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