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?
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.
I'm sorry for not adding much value to the conversation but I just wanted to say that this was an excellent reply jblow. So much of this is spot on, particularly the parts about personal identity.
I've stayed in jobs where I became complacent and stayed too long. When I had finally had enough it was incredibly difficult for me to find something new because my skills were so specific that people couldn't see where I would fit. I will never do that again. If I have to switch jobs several times over the course of a few years, I'll take that over droning away and having my skills atrophy.
One thing that's kept me relatively sane are my side projects. My side projects have also made me realize I won't really be happy until I'm doing my own thing (or at least taking a shot at it). With a family though, I need the predictable income and benefits that a "regular" job provides. I'd love to take a few years off to pursue some of my own ideas, but it's just not feasible for me right now. Or I'm too scared/stupid to figure out how to put myself in the position to pursue my ideas.
It's tough knowing what you should be doing, but not knowing how to get in a position to do what you should be doing.
I had the exact opposite experience. I found that I was laser focused on a particular chunk of code when working in Clojure. Functions were logically grouped together. I never found myself jumping around.
"Greenwald and Banaji are not suggesting that people stop helping their friends, relatives and neighbors. Rather, they suggest that we direct some effort to people we may not naturally think to help."
This is correct. Once the Disney deal was announced, LucasArts folks had a feeling there wasn't much time left. I know a few people who left LucasArts for exactly the reason you describe.
Not well versed in both, but I think desktop apps are an area where Clojure shines. Let's say I want to write a cross platform desktop GUI app in Haskell. What do I use? wxHaskell seems to be actively maintained, but a lot of the projects listed on http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Applications_and_librarie... appear to be inactive or dead.
With Clojure I have access to Swing (yeah I know...Swing isn't everyone's favorite) without installing any additional libraries. Then there is seesaw which is a very nice layer on top of Swing. To install seesaw I simply edit a text file in my Clojure project and the project management/automation system installs it for me. Very nice.
https://github.com/PythonJS/PythonJS