Made with Corona...
A few weeks ago we had a post on how to debug an Android app that was build using an older build to support ARMv6. So, if someone asks how to debug an Android app or run it in the emulator, ...
On the Ansca Forums, there was a thread and it has been confirmed by the Ansca Staff that CoronaSDK builds are *incompatible* with the Android simulator. Imagine that. If you are developing for the iOS on a Mac and do not have a device, the closest thing that will help you get an experience closest to a device is the xCode simulator. So similarly, if you were building for the Android, the closest thing that should be to a device for testing is.... the Android Emulator. Now, either Google have made a big booboo, where they have made the emulator that is *incompatible* with the Android devices so a CoronaSDK build app can work on the multitude of Android devices but not work with the Android Emulator, or... there is an issue with the Ansca build process.
This is an official response from Ansca coz off-late there have been a lot of responses from the big developers that know what they are doing, like Tom, Eric, etc. Since we have a response from the kids and nothing from them then it would mean that that is true and confirmed by Ansca. This is a bit of a concern. If there are signature/binary incompatibilities in the build outputs, there *could* be a chance that the apps might get rejected, I am not sure of the process that is used by the Amazon store, the Google marketplace store is a joke, so it does not matter what you put in there. I have felt that the Amazon store is nearly as strict as the Apple store. With these issues, if they do test using an emulator and it does not work... this can lead to a lot of heartburn for developers.
Another thing that did surprise me was the fact that asking if the Ansca Corona simulators behaved differently under the various platforms, it was another shock for me as If I read between the lines, it is a message that screams and says, "There are inconsistencies between the Mac version and the Windows version". In most of my workshops and writings, I have been stressing that the *best* part of the Ansca frameworks are that they are consistent across the platforms, however it seems it has either reached a point where the platforms are posing a challenge to the developers or the fact that there are different developers working on different platforms, it is an imprint of their limitations/challenges.
Lastly, the forums used to be a place that I felt was the *only* place amongst most of the forums for so many frameworks, that were community fueled, whereas many are generally dominated or governed by the Developer of the frameworks, staff of the frameworks, this was the only free place left. A lot of good developers were leaving the same, some very good friends and very good developers, they would not speak of the situation that made them change their minds. It was also nice to see that Ansca recruited young blood to answer the basic questions on the forum. It seems that the *young* blood have now reached a *policing* stage, where they do slip in the odd insult and odd personal opinion. It is rather a shame, because when I read a post with the badge "Ansca Staff" instead of "Test Driver", "Indie Developer" or "Pro Developer" I feel that the person that is expressing their opinion and the manner in which they are expressing that opinion is on behalf of the entire staff at "Ansca" and the rather occasional slip-ups are not exactly good for the public image. However, it seems that it does not matter as the majority of the people asking for help are real beginners and their questions generally do revolve around what is a variable and how do I create a variable, for which the *young blood* that they have is suitable enough, coz a Pro-developer would not be holding on for a response from a forum, either they would be looking else where for a more *high* level solution or requesting other solutions.
I personally had a few brush-ins at the forums with the oddballs, then there are those that send me emails and ask for advice at a stage where they are nearing completion of their app and need to just fix a few things. It seems that there are cracks that are appearing in the process, Carlos, the co-founder has been hard at work trying to maintain the public image but it seems that the way things are happening are too fast and too much, and the official *attitudes* do not help.
I would be missing contributing to the forums, but I guess I can live with that, what I feel bad about it that this will happen with other developers and the *official* attitudes will only increase. The forums that were once an open ground will soon in a year to two be policed and closed. If that did happen, it will be a very sorry situation for Ansca, knowing the journey that Carlos and Walter have had from the Adobe days to setting this up and then managing this, it would be really sad now that they are getting somewhere, when Adobe is throwing in the towel, there are issues under their noses.
In summary, Corona SDK has reached a stage where more and more people are comfortable with CoronaSDK for rapid development, iOS and Android features are expanding very fast and the framework is unable to catch up with the offerings. Where 11-20 year olds are fine with playing and tinkering, the serious developers require slightly more, this is already straining Ansca. A new framework that is based on Lua is developed and created every week or so, however CoronaSDK still remains the easiest to use. The other frameworks are offering a lot more power and functionality but then is *not* aimed at the 11-20 age group and those that are non-programmers, at least not the ones that do not have basic understanding of development. This is one of the risks that Ansca lives with and it was confirmed as a great risk atleast here in Australia, a lot of developers in Academia consider CoronaSDK as a toy, a framework for Games and Kids, in the same category as Scratch or GameMaker/GameSalad. Majority of the community are ex- game salad, not xCode/Obj-C developers. It is difficult trying to explain to them that Corona Framework is a serious framework and specially given the *official* representation by an ex-game salad developer, (nothing wrong in being a game salad developer) it might help convince other GameSalad users to move over to Corona but it still keeps the *pro* developers away. Why am I ranting about this? I was in conversations with Carlos over a year on various aspects and the vision and the business road-map that he outlined was amazing and as a user I believed in it. However it is difficult to believe in adverse conditions such as these, where the Emulator is not supported, Cross-Platform development can yield different results and the *official governing* of the forums. It is a recipe for disaster, given that there is an apparent lack of documentation, it is almost an uphill battle to know where to find all of this information. In my opinion the *young blood* that Ansca has can be used to structure the forums and make it easy to find /query information so that a new user does not have to create several threads regurgitating the same information that was asked and answered earlier. It is but a wonder that StackOverflow remains the standard in all Q&A type forums.
On the Ansca Forums, there was a thread and it has been confirmed by the Ansca Staff that CoronaSDK builds are *incompatible* with the Android simulator. Imagine that. If you are developing for the iOS on a Mac and do not have a device, the closest thing that will help you get an experience closest to a device is the xCode simulator. So similarly, if you were building for the Android, the closest thing that should be to a device for testing is.... the Android Emulator. Now, either Google have made a big booboo, where they have made the emulator that is *incompatible* with the Android devices so a CoronaSDK build app can work on the multitude of Android devices but not work with the Android Emulator, or... there is an issue with the Ansca build process.
This is an official response from Ansca coz off-late there have been a lot of responses from the big developers that know what they are doing, like Tom, Eric, etc. Since we have a response from the kids and nothing from them then it would mean that that is true and confirmed by Ansca. This is a bit of a concern. If there are signature/binary incompatibilities in the build outputs, there *could* be a chance that the apps might get rejected, I am not sure of the process that is used by the Amazon store, the Google marketplace store is a joke, so it does not matter what you put in there. I have felt that the Amazon store is nearly as strict as the Apple store. With these issues, if they do test using an emulator and it does not work... this can lead to a lot of heartburn for developers.
Another thing that did surprise me was the fact that asking if the Ansca Corona simulators behaved differently under the various platforms, it was another shock for me as If I read between the lines, it is a message that screams and says, "There are inconsistencies between the Mac version and the Windows version". In most of my workshops and writings, I have been stressing that the *best* part of the Ansca frameworks are that they are consistent across the platforms, however it seems it has either reached a point where the platforms are posing a challenge to the developers or the fact that there are different developers working on different platforms, it is an imprint of their limitations/challenges.
Lastly, the forums used to be a place that I felt was the *only* place amongst most of the forums for so many frameworks, that were community fueled, whereas many are generally dominated or governed by the Developer of the frameworks, staff of the frameworks, this was the only free place left. A lot of good developers were leaving the same, some very good friends and very good developers, they would not speak of the situation that made them change their minds. It was also nice to see that Ansca recruited young blood to answer the basic questions on the forum. It seems that the *young* blood have now reached a *policing* stage, where they do slip in the odd insult and odd personal opinion. It is rather a shame, because when I read a post with the badge "Ansca Staff" instead of "Test Driver", "Indie Developer" or "Pro Developer" I feel that the person that is expressing their opinion and the manner in which they are expressing that opinion is on behalf of the entire staff at "Ansca" and the rather occasional slip-ups are not exactly good for the public image. However, it seems that it does not matter as the majority of the people asking for help are real beginners and their questions generally do revolve around what is a variable and how do I create a variable, for which the *young blood* that they have is suitable enough, coz a Pro-developer would not be holding on for a response from a forum, either they would be looking else where for a more *high* level solution or requesting other solutions.
I personally had a few brush-ins at the forums with the oddballs, then there are those that send me emails and ask for advice at a stage where they are nearing completion of their app and need to just fix a few things. It seems that there are cracks that are appearing in the process, Carlos, the co-founder has been hard at work trying to maintain the public image but it seems that the way things are happening are too fast and too much, and the official *attitudes* do not help.
I would be missing contributing to the forums, but I guess I can live with that, what I feel bad about it that this will happen with other developers and the *official* attitudes will only increase. The forums that were once an open ground will soon in a year to two be policed and closed. If that did happen, it will be a very sorry situation for Ansca, knowing the journey that Carlos and Walter have had from the Adobe days to setting this up and then managing this, it would be really sad now that they are getting somewhere, when Adobe is throwing in the towel, there are issues under their noses.
In summary, Corona SDK has reached a stage where more and more people are comfortable with CoronaSDK for rapid development, iOS and Android features are expanding very fast and the framework is unable to catch up with the offerings. Where 11-20 year olds are fine with playing and tinkering, the serious developers require slightly more, this is already straining Ansca. A new framework that is based on Lua is developed and created every week or so, however CoronaSDK still remains the easiest to use. The other frameworks are offering a lot more power and functionality but then is *not* aimed at the 11-20 age group and those that are non-programmers, at least not the ones that do not have basic understanding of development. This is one of the risks that Ansca lives with and it was confirmed as a great risk atleast here in Australia, a lot of developers in Academia consider CoronaSDK as a toy, a framework for Games and Kids, in the same category as Scratch or GameMaker/GameSalad. Majority of the community are ex- game salad, not xCode/Obj-C developers. It is difficult trying to explain to them that Corona Framework is a serious framework and specially given the *official* representation by an ex-game salad developer, (nothing wrong in being a game salad developer) it might help convince other GameSalad users to move over to Corona but it still keeps the *pro* developers away. Why am I ranting about this? I was in conversations with Carlos over a year on various aspects and the vision and the business road-map that he outlined was amazing and as a user I believed in it. However it is difficult to believe in adverse conditions such as these, where the Emulator is not supported, Cross-Platform development can yield different results and the *official governing* of the forums. It is a recipe for disaster, given that there is an apparent lack of documentation, it is almost an uphill battle to know where to find all of this information. In my opinion the *young blood* that Ansca has can be used to structure the forums and make it easy to find /query information so that a new user does not have to create several threads regurgitating the same information that was asked and answered earlier. It is but a wonder that StackOverflow remains the standard in all Q&A type forums.
Comments
Post a Comment