[lively-kernel] Fwd: LK ready for prototyping?

[Robert Krahn]

Lively is a wonderful environment for experimenting. Of course this depends
on what you want to achieve but in my experience you are able to do quite
complex things pretty fast.

Take this demo for example:
  result: http://lively-kernel.org/other/fuelDemoVideo1.mov
  building it with wiring parts together:
http://lively-kernel.org/other/fuelDemoVideo2.mov

It is a rough visualization of a how a car driving along a given path that
highlights the fuel stations the car can reach with its fuel level that
changes as it drives along.

(The purpose of the demo was mainly to show how such a visualization can be
created using a mix of graphical/textual programming and combining existing
components, not the actual application itself)

Creating the initial sketch (that was really running of course) was
something that two people (that were very familiar with the system) did in
the course of three hours. Pretty fast I guess. Tweaking things to look
nicer and embedding ideas that came up in the process of building it took
2-3 days more.

For the purpose of creating this interactive demo, Lively worked very well.
However, important to mention is that this was *just a demo*. The
application that came out of it not usable in the sense of a software
product as you have to be careful of where to click etc. So a lot of issues
related to the usability of the interface from the standpoint of an
end-user were not addressed. Producing something like a "demo to be used by
others" will definitely require *much* more time.

Also consider that Lively / Webwerkstatt is used as a research environment
as opposed to a stable development environment like Eclipse. Things look
rough. Interfaces change. Tools evolve. We are currently working on a
version of Lively that is more stable than what you find in Webwerkstatt
(see the other messages on this list), however, we are not able to give any
support guarantees.

I agree with Jens, take a couple of hours time and try to dig in the system
and produce at least a tiny part of what you have in mind and see if this
feels right.

I would love to see a new system build in/with Lively :)

Robert


On Mon, Sep 10, 2012 at 8:12 AM, Jens Lincke <jens.lincke at hpi.uni-potsdam.de
> wrote:

> Hi Chip,
>
> did you play with it for 2 hours you to try it out, or what are your
> experiences yet? It depends what kind of demo app is required... A mobile
> app?
>
> I think you could try, but be aware that it can be easy if you do similar
> things others have been done, but it can get messy when you want to go
> where no one has gone before you in lively ;-)
>
> Best,
> Jens
>
> Am 10.09.2012 um 15:59 schrieb Chip Nowacek <chip at twostewards.com>:
>
> Should I take the silence as: "Stay away from Lively" ?
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Chip Nowacek <chip at twostewards.com>
> Date: Thu, Aug 30, 2012 at 6:11 PM
> Subject: LK ready for prototyping?
> To: The Lively Kernel Mailing List <lively-kernel at hpi.uni-potsdam.de>
>
>
> Hello,
>
> I'm sure I am less than 1/10th the programmer of the least on this list. I
> hope you'll forgive the my rather lowly skill set.
>
> That said, I have a desperate need to create a demo app for investors and
> production developers. In your estimation, is LK ready for that type of
> work? I will ask about production readiness later.
>
> While I'm asking, anyone interested in helping out with (what I think will
> be) an important application with long legs? The domain model, 4 years in
> the works, is pretty stable. It needs a compelling, highly-interactive
> front end (thus the LK question). In broad terms, I am looking to build a
> cognitive tool that deals with human relationships. It'll also need a
> mobile app at some point.
>
> Thank you humbly,
>
> Chip
>
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