Peter Alcibiades wrote:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/schools/code-club-afterschool-group-teaches-children-how-to-become-programming-whizz-kids-7956967.html
Scratch != LiveCode
Or, translated into LiveCode:
Scratch <> LiveCode
In that translation we see one of many reasons why LiveCode is great for
rapid development of cross-platform GUI apps, but in some ways not the
ideal learning tool: it works very differently from most of the popular
languages, so while it can be helpful to learn algorithms and some
aspects of structure and style, the more you use it the more you'll pick
up habits that aren't transferable to other languages.
But more relevant to that article is the nature of Scratch itself, how
it was designed specifically to deal with the very different cognitive
process children use relative to adults, a progression Piaget called
"genetic epistemology".
A purely visual language, Scratch can be used by younger audiences that
would have a hard time memorizing hundreds of commands and functions.
If you haven't used Scratch it's an interesting beast, well worth the
exploration.
Scratch is also free, both "as in beer" and "as in freedom", so it's
infinitely cheaper than using LiveCode, a key factor with today's school
budgets.
I would love to see a compelling business case for a free LiveCode
product; as a consultant nothing would benefit me more. But after
trying it for several years RunRev was unable to make it work, and even
the collective wisdom of this community has been unable to come up with
a solution.
As a business owner myself, I recognize the fundamental necessity of
positive ROI: any project that can't pay for itself will become
inviable. In the absence of any plan which would make RunRev's funding
such a free product profitable, or even just break-even, the company now
offers only paid products.
All that said, it's worth noting that even with only paid products and
only products that require scripting, the company continues to make
considerable progress in education - a very few examples, pulled from
recent entries in the company blog:
LiveCode Teacher Training Day in Edinburgh
<http://www.runrev.com/company/runrev-blog/livecode-teacher-training-day-in-edinburgh->
LiveCode Created App is no. 1 Hottest Educational App on iTunes
<http://www.runrev.com/company/runrev-blog/livecode-created-app-is-no-1-hottest-educational-app-on-itunes->
How to teach programming to students today
<http://www.runrev.com/company/runrev-blog/how-to-teach-programming-to-students-today>
Students around Edinburgh Ready to Dive into Programming with LiveCode
<http://www.runrev.com/company/runrev-blog/students-around-edinburgh-ready-to-dive-into-programming-with-livecode>
Join Us at The Education Show
<http://www.runrev.com/company/runrev-blog/join-us-at-the-education-show>
LiveCode in The Times Educational Supplement
<http://www.runrev.com/company/runrev-blog/livecode-in-the-times-educational-supplement>
For a company that pays its bills selling software, that's pretty good
progress.
Other companies can make money from other revenue streams, which may
help them justify costs for such things.
Given relative resources available to the respective companies, perhaps
the better title for this thread would have been:
Why killing HyperCard was killing an investment in the future
--
Richard Gaskin
Fourth World
LiveCode training and consulting: http://www.fourthworld.com
Webzine for LiveCode developers: http://www.LiveCodeJournal.com
Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/FourthWorldSys
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