Burned...3rd time buying Corona...3rd time regretting it.

Solar2D General Questions/Discussion
#1

Which makes me dumb, really.

The first time around, (about 3 years ago maybe?) I understood the shortcomings…all new software has shortcomings.  Still, it was not quite mature enough for my project and I shelved it.

The second time around, (fall of 2012), I was expecting better.  The camera crashed on landscape orientation, and the 2D scene graph was rather inconsistent and messy.  I spoke at length with Walter at the Austin gaming event held during the summer of 2013, and was quite happy that graphics 2.0 would address those shortcomings.

So now, despite a 170% price increase, I STILL bought again, thinking this thing must be robust and stable by now.

Right outta the gate:

* Extremely divergent behavior between simulator and device (both in appearance and behavior)

* Still have camera bugs apparently…but I can’t tell for sure because the app runs differently on sim/device.

* Set the orientation to portrait (to test camera), runs portrait in simulator, device build still runs landscape (??? why?)

I realize lots of people have made successful apps with Corona, which I suppose furthers the notion that I am a dumbass.

Despite the fact that I’ve been a professional console game developer since the days of the Playstation 1 and have been writing software for about 35 years now.

Further silliness:

* Still force people to build binaries on Macs, even though the actual build happens on Corona servers.  (Note, Marmalade builds iOS binaries on PC just fine.)

* PC simulator STILL has no support for camera, no simple Windows dialog box for text input so you can at least use your app on the simulator.  (I conveyed this idea directly to Walter in Austin, and he loved the idea, and made a note of it.  I thought surely something so simple would have been implemented by now.)

* New “Composer” silliness, spending time developing that instead of the truly important bug fixes.  I’m sure it’s awesome, but so was Storyboard.

Sorry for the rant…but Corona has been around a LONG time now.  I expected a far more mature product than what I’m seeing after spending a grand total of about, what, $1,300 so far??  And STILL not shipping anything?

The promise of Corona is simplified development…I still believe in that promise…but there are so many silly little roadblocks that muck up the process that I’m losing faith fast.  If I can’t get anything out of the software this time around, this will be my last attempt.

Frustrated!

-John

#2

Hey jnagle.

Sorry to hear that. I think you are not the only one frustrated with Corona. A quick look on the blog post about the new Composer API shows that: what was supposed to be a good thing became a huge list of comments complaining about Corona releasing a feature that users simply didn’t need it while others bugs and basic features simply don’t exist.

My partner codes in Windows and man, it is ridiculous that Windows users doesn’t have access to basic stuff like textField or Camera in the Simulator. 

I also saw a Walter presentation around 3 months ago at GMIC-SF and he was saying how amazing Corona was not only to develop games but also apps while we still today suffer with the terrible integration between native textField/boxes with display groups.

I still have some months ahead with my license and I am really hoping to see BIG improvements with Corona, let’s see what happens…

PS: In your honor, I opened a survey on the Corona Indie Dev Facebook group to get some feedback from the community.

#3

I haven’t tried using the camera and I don’t consider the simulators that divergent, in my experience. While I’m not saying the native/vs simulated textboxes etc are not real problems…

Simulators are just that: simulators. They should not be expected to be an exact duplication of the real thing, just an approximation. Even Android and Apple sims are not perfect and they only have to simulate one target environment.

Marmalade can *output* for iOS because it doesn’t *build* any iOS code - it wraps your code and allows it to be called from a loader. Corona actually produces real iOS code, which still requires XCode. In this, Marmalade is effectiely cheating - it’s clever, but the output is, ultimately, not the same type of application. You still need a mac to upload to the app store with Marmalade. There are cloud solutions however which let you effectively rent a mac, so buying an actual mac is never a real requirement.

Why do you think you were burned? Did you not try the most recent free version? There is no limit to the use - unlike Marmalade.

Have you submitted any bug reports for the problems you’ve seen?

My experience with Corona is of a system which has so much more to go into it than systems which are little more than bridging - leaving the real work to the developer. Corona, IMHO, are actually trying to build something which provides a real app and which truly makes it a platform independent coding experience with a language which is extremely easy to learn and master. In that, I think, they’ve succeeded.

#4

>> Have you submitted any bug reports for the problems you’ve seen?

Not yet…I just bought the subscription a few days ago.  I don’t mind submitting bugs, but we both know with things like Composer apparently trumping bugs on the list of priorities, the chances of seeing my bugs addressed are slim to none.

>> Corona, IMHO, are actually trying to build something which provides a real app and which truly makes it a platform

>> independent coding experience with a language which is extremely easy to learn and master.

That’s definitely the idea, and I believe they are on the right track.  But every time I’ve tried to use it for more than the most trivial things, seems like I slam into these brickwalls.  All the productivity benefits of using the really nice API are out the window as I track down why things don’t work the same on the simulator and the device.

For example, right now, I have a scene with some nice buttons, which slide off and on depending on your choices.  Select one button, take a picture, and navigate to the next scene where the picture is displayed.

In the simulator, this is exactly what happens.

On the device, after the picture is taken, the next scene is not loaded…I stay in the first scene.  It’s not crashing and the device log shows no exceptions.  If I DON’T take a picture (i.e. just load an image resource), it navigates just fine.

What I’m trying to do is so simple.  Take a picture, which is used as a background, then the user positions/sizes other graphic elements on top of the background.  That’s it.  Corona should be able to do this with aplomb.

And I realize simulators aren’t perfect.  But Jesus…entering text is a pretty basic thing.  And if you can’t use the camera device (that’s on pretty much every laptop made in the last 10 years), at least pretend you did and return an image of Walter eating a hamburger or something.  Don’t just give me a goofy message that camera is not supported on PC.

Your understanding of Marmalade is flawed, by the way.  The loader fixes up all the calls depending on the target platform, and from that point you are running native OS code.  Read the “How Marmalade Works” page, it explains everything.

-John

#5

I’d just like to point out one thing about Composer that seems to have gotten lost in all of this.  It is the bug fixes for Storyboard that have been reported.  Instead of fixing the older library, we refactored it, put in other requests that people and shops wanted.  If it helps you, think of it as Storyboard 2.0 where we didn’t want to force the breaking changes back on the community.

#6

If you take bugs for Storyboard and fix them in Composer and not in Storyboard that is one sure way of forcing people to go forward towards the new API isn’t it. Meanwhile Composer is not without its share of bugs and initial teething pains it seems which is not at all surprising given the track record.

#7

That’s how software development works.  You build a product, you fix it’s bugs, you enhance it, etc.  At some point, to keep fixing and enhancing it, you refactor the code to continue to work on it.  The new version will have bugs that get fixed and will get enhancements.  This is known as the product life-cycle.  It’s a continuous process.  Where possible, you let your customers migrate at a pace that’s right for them, but rarely to you continue to fix the old version. 

Rob

#8

Thank you for the educational segment on software development.

#9

Let’s take a deep breath here guys…, I think everyone has already made your respective point.

Now, let’s move on! :slight_smile:

#10

Rob, yes, but you are missing the point of my post.  Composer is not the problem…it’s symptomatic of the problem.  You have a finite amount of development bandwidth, and you chose to spend that bandwidth fixing something which ostensibly most people were already using and happy with.  Meanwhile, we are left to endure major shortcomings in the simulator, divergent behavior between simulator and device, and glitchy API’s with quirky hacks to deal with major issues like taking a simple picture in landscape mode.

Corona is not crap.  And it has definitely gotten better.  But it’s not there yet…at least not for me.

My advice is, focus on the fundamentals.  Since we cannot do breakpoint debugging on the device, we rely on the simulator for the vast majority of our development.  Invest some serious attention here to make sure it has as much fidelity with the device as possible. Don’t give us messages saying something is unsupported on the simulator.  At least give us fake data.  Give us a dialog box to enter text if you can’t emulate the device keyboard (fair enough.)  Not sure how you can tout Corona as suitable for business/productivity apps with such piss-poor text support (both on device and the simulator.)

Meanwhile, as much as I loathe the idea of working in C++, I’m forced to spend some time working with Marmalade.  (Who, by the way, offer their own Lua implementation as well.)  They have done a lot of really nice things, not least of which is to provide an incredible simulator.  Building and deploying from the PC is fantastic.  And even though I’m not big on C++, the SDK is at least very clean and well-designed.

-John

#11

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12596827/good-examples-of-non-game-marmalade-apps

#12

Hey jnagle.

Sorry to hear that. I think you are not the only one frustrated with Corona. A quick look on the blog post about the new Composer API shows that: what was supposed to be a good thing became a huge list of comments complaining about Corona releasing a feature that users simply didn’t need it while others bugs and basic features simply don’t exist.

My partner codes in Windows and man, it is ridiculous that Windows users doesn’t have access to basic stuff like textField or Camera in the Simulator. 

I also saw a Walter presentation around 3 months ago at GMIC-SF and he was saying how amazing Corona was not only to develop games but also apps while we still today suffer with the terrible integration between native textField/boxes with display groups.

I still have some months ahead with my license and I am really hoping to see BIG improvements with Corona, let’s see what happens…

PS: In your honor, I opened a survey on the Corona Indie Dev Facebook group to get some feedback from the community.

#13

I haven’t tried using the camera and I don’t consider the simulators that divergent, in my experience. While I’m not saying the native/vs simulated textboxes etc are not real problems…

Simulators are just that: simulators. They should not be expected to be an exact duplication of the real thing, just an approximation. Even Android and Apple sims are not perfect and they only have to simulate one target environment.

Marmalade can *output* for iOS because it doesn’t *build* any iOS code - it wraps your code and allows it to be called from a loader. Corona actually produces real iOS code, which still requires XCode. In this, Marmalade is effectiely cheating - it’s clever, but the output is, ultimately, not the same type of application. You still need a mac to upload to the app store with Marmalade. There are cloud solutions however which let you effectively rent a mac, so buying an actual mac is never a real requirement.

Why do you think you were burned? Did you not try the most recent free version? There is no limit to the use - unlike Marmalade.

Have you submitted any bug reports for the problems you’ve seen?

My experience with Corona is of a system which has so much more to go into it than systems which are little more than bridging - leaving the real work to the developer. Corona, IMHO, are actually trying to build something which provides a real app and which truly makes it a platform independent coding experience with a language which is extremely easy to learn and master. In that, I think, they’ve succeeded.

#14

>> Have you submitted any bug reports for the problems you’ve seen?

Not yet…I just bought the subscription a few days ago.  I don’t mind submitting bugs, but we both know with things like Composer apparently trumping bugs on the list of priorities, the chances of seeing my bugs addressed are slim to none.

>> Corona, IMHO, are actually trying to build something which provides a real app and which truly makes it a platform

>> independent coding experience with a language which is extremely easy to learn and master.

That’s definitely the idea, and I believe they are on the right track.  But every time I’ve tried to use it for more than the most trivial things, seems like I slam into these brickwalls.  All the productivity benefits of using the really nice API are out the window as I track down why things don’t work the same on the simulator and the device.

For example, right now, I have a scene with some nice buttons, which slide off and on depending on your choices.  Select one button, take a picture, and navigate to the next scene where the picture is displayed.

In the simulator, this is exactly what happens.

On the device, after the picture is taken, the next scene is not loaded…I stay in the first scene.  It’s not crashing and the device log shows no exceptions.  If I DON’T take a picture (i.e. just load an image resource), it navigates just fine.

What I’m trying to do is so simple.  Take a picture, which is used as a background, then the user positions/sizes other graphic elements on top of the background.  That’s it.  Corona should be able to do this with aplomb.

And I realize simulators aren’t perfect.  But Jesus…entering text is a pretty basic thing.  And if you can’t use the camera device (that’s on pretty much every laptop made in the last 10 years), at least pretend you did and return an image of Walter eating a hamburger or something.  Don’t just give me a goofy message that camera is not supported on PC.

Your understanding of Marmalade is flawed, by the way.  The loader fixes up all the calls depending on the target platform, and from that point you are running native OS code.  Read the “How Marmalade Works” page, it explains everything.

-John

#15

I’d just like to point out one thing about Composer that seems to have gotten lost in all of this.  It is the bug fixes for Storyboard that have been reported.  Instead of fixing the older library, we refactored it, put in other requests that people and shops wanted.  If it helps you, think of it as Storyboard 2.0 where we didn’t want to force the breaking changes back on the community.

#16

If you take bugs for Storyboard and fix them in Composer and not in Storyboard that is one sure way of forcing people to go forward towards the new API isn’t it. Meanwhile Composer is not without its share of bugs and initial teething pains it seems which is not at all surprising given the track record.

#17

That’s how software development works.  You build a product, you fix it’s bugs, you enhance it, etc.  At some point, to keep fixing and enhancing it, you refactor the code to continue to work on it.  The new version will have bugs that get fixed and will get enhancements.  This is known as the product life-cycle.  It’s a continuous process.  Where possible, you let your customers migrate at a pace that’s right for them, but rarely to you continue to fix the old version. 

Rob

#18

Thank you for the educational segment on software development.

#19

Let’s take a deep breath here guys…, I think everyone has already made your respective point.

Now, let’s move on! :slight_smile:

#20

Rob, yes, but you are missing the point of my post.  Composer is not the problem…it’s symptomatic of the problem.  You have a finite amount of development bandwidth, and you chose to spend that bandwidth fixing something which ostensibly most people were already using and happy with.  Meanwhile, we are left to endure major shortcomings in the simulator, divergent behavior between simulator and device, and glitchy API’s with quirky hacks to deal with major issues like taking a simple picture in landscape mode.

Corona is not crap.  And it has definitely gotten better.  But it’s not there yet…at least not for me.

My advice is, focus on the fundamentals.  Since we cannot do breakpoint debugging on the device, we rely on the simulator for the vast majority of our development.  Invest some serious attention here to make sure it has as much fidelity with the device as possible. Don’t give us messages saying something is unsupported on the simulator.  At least give us fake data.  Give us a dialog box to enter text if you can’t emulate the device keyboard (fair enough.)  Not sure how you can tout Corona as suitable for business/productivity apps with such piss-poor text support (both on device and the simulator.)

Meanwhile, as much as I loathe the idea of working in C++, I’m forced to spend some time working with Marmalade.  (Who, by the way, offer their own Lua implementation as well.)  They have done a lot of really nice things, not least of which is to provide an incredible simulator.  Building and deploying from the PC is fantastic.  And even though I’m not big on C++, the SDK is at least very clean and well-designed.

-John