Learning from across they way #13

[richmond62]

I did use the word "play", and as I am sitting at home, off work, as this flaming 'flu persists, it amazes me I even managed to produce that piece of crap.

What IS useful about it is that one can see when a property actually has any effect on a field.

That stack could be 'pruned' and made into a palette, so one could set up a bespoke field, and then hit a button to clone it to one's top stack.

[tperry2x]

You've touched on the (one of many) reasons I want to make a revised inspector.
Things like this, where I don't actually know what the proper thing to set would be (because it doesn't seem to be labelled correctly).
However, those innacuracies make producing a working inspector with the right tooltips and the correct setting, nigh on impossible.

[richmond62]

Unfortunately, one of the few useful things I learnt at Abertay "University" in my "MSc" was about bunging notes inside my code, and documenting everything properly in case:

1. People really care about my software when I go gaga or die.

2. I cannot remember WTF I actually did "that" bit of coding 6 years ago.

#2 is really the only case that is relevant in my case.

Being charitable I would like to think that the people we inherited the 'mess of pottage' from documented everything, both as to what it was meant to do, and why decisions were taken to implement things in the way they were . . .

If they did they have not made those notes public as far as I am aware.

Certainly those Tab_delimited files:
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com.livecode.interface.classic.TableField.tsv.zip

(945 Bytes) Downloaded 31 times

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Give NO indication as to what is a property that 'DOES' rather than a property that 'DOESN'T', and what all the ones that 'DON'T' are there for anyway.

[tperry2x]

I cannot remember WTF I actually did "that" bit of coding 6 years ago.

Sometimes, I find that can be as little as a month ago. But as you say, that's what comments are for in code, release notes, and documented changes.

I have the feeling there's huge amounts of internal documentation and nuggets of information relating to the "community" build, that the community will never ever see.

[richmond62]

A certain cheeky monkey asked a question:

https://forums.livecode.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=39457

As the 'community' build is open source, does it stand that any 'metalanguage' relating to it is also open source and should be made available?

[tperry2x]

As the 'community' build is open source, does it stand that any 'metalanguage' relating to it is also open source and should be made available?

Hahahaha, you mean along with the 'prebuilts' (which we had to fight for), and all the previous versions of LCC from 6.x upwards to 9.6.3 you mean? The only reason anyone has access to those now is because of thewaybackmachine. LC have removed them off their download area on their site. They have no involvement with the community version now, and by my reckoning, if they can pick and choose what 'community' means and what they provide - then this makes their GPLv3 agreement null and void (in my opinion). This isn't LC-bashing. I'm stating an opinion, but one based on observable behaviour.

Coupled with the fact that the bug reporting site is now also behind a login-wall... not very "community" is it? So my argument is this should no longer be called GPLv3 - and more 'closed source' to a degree. (Proprietary software with open-source elements, not all of it available or modifiable in future). There's some bits that may always remain a mystery because we've been shut out.

not just us, but ANYONE developing their own spin-off based on the LCC engine is going to come up against these brick walls.

Take a fork / copy (dump) - whatever it's called, of the LCC github stuff because I'm sure it's only a matter of time before that's gone too.

Oh, and while I'm here: why is it that as soon as I type something like this, the number of 'guest' users spikes up to 48+. Talk about feeling watched.

our-forum-badge.png (39.11 KiB) Viewed 1102 times

[richmond62]

Talk about feeling watched.

As far as I can work out there are 2 main types of people/organisations that get involved in Open Source software:

1. People who passionately care about some sort of cause and wish to use the Open Source pathway to get as much out to as many people as they possibly can.

1.1. Examples that spring to mind are:

1.1.1 GIMP: Spencer Kimball and his chums felt that Adobe was charging vast amounts for their product (Photoshop) because they had a virtual monopoly (it worked; Photoshop now sells for about 1/20th of what it did 20 years ago).

1.1.2 Open Office felt the same about Microsoft Office: When the Open Office people had a "lover's tiff" and some of them went away to start LibreOffice those people were able to take all the Open Office code with them, it being Open Source . . .

2. People who are only really interested in their commercial product, so release an Open Source version (knowing they can stop it in its tracks whenever it serves their interests) in the hope that users of the Open Source version will contribute an awful lot of work that can be folded back into the commercial version. I am, at the moment, only aware of one example . . .

People in case #1 take a lot of care to make sure that "all and everything" is available to "all and everyone" because they regard an Open Source licence NOT as a handy lever to get more of what they want, but as the driving force behind their work.

People in case #2 probably don't bother to go through an Open Source licence carefully, and at a later date, should they drop their Open Source version, a lot of what SHOULD have been included in a request for source code is quietly not talked about, or hedged around with so many difficulties that no one can take the time and effort to pursue it.

Talk about feeling watched.

I would like to believe that:

1. This Forum IS being watched,

2. By users of the product OXT is derived from who are wondering whether the slightly awkward calculation about developing Open Source software versus code-protected software at quite a price might justify moving one's code-bases to OXT.

3. People who feel a bit guilty because they know that they have violated the Open Source licence they signed up to.

4. People who might feel that they can learn from 'here' just as we can, occasionally, learn from 'there'.

5. People who, as soon as the Open Source version of the product from which OXT is derived was dropped by the parent company, stopped using it (for some reason I totally fail to understand), and are wondering about jumping on board with OXT.

Talk about feeling watched.

The fact that, suddenly, "soon as I type something like this, the number of 'guest' users spikes up to 48+" should, surely, be taken as a compliment as we are getting under someone's skin: skin that could do with a bit of a scratch.

[richmond62]

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Right on the button!

Mind you: you might get 'done' for using the logo up the top.

[tperry2x]

Mind you: you might get 'done' for using the logo up the top.

It's open source , so I can take it and modify it can't I.
There you go. Changed to something to prevent 'feedback'.
However, wasn't it telling just how many views that had?

observable.png (27.14 KiB) Viewed 1100 times

It certainly worked as an 'experiment'.

[richmond62]

It's open source , so I can take it and modify it can't I.

The Green variant is:
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sludge.png (3.11 KiB) Viewed 1100 times

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Ooooh: who's getting nervous?
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our-forum-badge2.png (39.11 KiB) Viewed 1098 times

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Oh, and "that one" you deleted is backed up on my machine, so it might just, pop up again . . .

[richmond62]

Mind you: I prefer this:
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our-forum-badge3.png (36.29 KiB) Viewed 1094 times

[tperry2x]

It certainly proves a point, that what we do and say is being 'monitored' and to the extent of that.
I still got my 10-pence-worth in on the logo, with the "Ive paid" checkbox. We've all paid one way or another for the open source variant. Even if you consider everyone's time. Everyone who ever had to raise repeated issues because things aren't getting fixed - people for which time is money. They all paid in their time, sorting out issues that should not have been issues.

Perhaps that's another reason why the bug tracker is now closed off. They aren't fixing those, as that related to anyone with a 'classic' version. All that listing does now is stand as an embarrassing to-do list that won't get done.

Okay, enough - I grow tired of finding more and more things left 'unfinished', broken, undocumented and incomplete.

[richmond62]

From 'over there':

Those four colored properties are used in the "Table Field"

[richmond62]

We've all paid one way or another for the open source variant.

Personally it was £120 and very, very few of the promises (beyond making the thing Open Source) were kept (see my point #2 in earlier posting).

Further fund-raisers . . .

I also contributed to the "Summer of Love" with KM sitting on a tatty brown sofa doing the "we're hungry" thing:

https://livecode.com/covid-19-livecode-impact-fund/
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Mind you that might say more about my being a 'soft touch' than anything else.

Now I just donate to RAZOM (much better bet):

https://www.razomforukraine.org/

[richmond62]

At least, with my 'new-fer-Richmond' iMac appeal I did buy an iMac, and I did a lot of work with it: ALL of which is Open Source.
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[richmond62]

https://livecode.com/resources/guide/

Has this:

https://github.com/livecode/livecode-id ... 2680e82583

been rolled into LC 963 or LC 970, and, as a consequence, OXT?

[tperry2x]

From 'over there':

Those four colored properties are used in the "Table Field"

I'm not so sure that helps at all, purely as:

New table field:

Screenshot at 2024-11-26 14-59-56.png (29.59 KiB) Viewed 1080 times

These are labelled incorrectly in the inspector (note tooltip) - so the question is, what is the correct way to leverage these in script? What are the correct names we should be using?

[tperry2x]

Has this:
https://github.com/livecode/livecode-id ... 2680e82583
been rolled into LC 963 or LC 970, and, as a consequence, OXT?

Probably, as the change was on Jun 22, 2021.
Possibly part of the dictionary that makes up a 'vanilla' github clone of 9.7.0-dp1. But that only changes some of the documentation, and a small change at that.

Returns the rect of the control connected with pIndex. Rect is relative to this group but takes into account the current vScroll. This may not prove very useful if you don't have control caching on.

[richmond62]

a small change

Beggars can't be choosers.

What IS interesting is that one of my multiple personalities just signed up for a 10 day LC trial, and he cannot log into the bug reporting thing.

[tperry2x]

I wonder if that's only for subscribed users, or something like that?

...one of my multiple personalities...

Haha, I'll have to remember that one.
It wasn't me, it was one of my multiple personalities.