Future of Corona SDK

Solar2D General Questions/Discussion
#1

We used Corona SDK since beta and have made 6 applications, working on several more. So we like Corona, it’s a great tool and in some way it’s the best platform for creating mobile applications.

But I really worry about the future of Corona SDK (so our company future too). I see the speed of implementation of features from Roadmap (very slow), I hear promises that not fulfilled (like 2 weeks cycle, Mac Store publishing, Roadmap voting etc.), I know about Carlos leaving for a new start-up (making a competitor to Corona) and I follow other similar SDK (like Moai, Giderous).
Adding that mobile market growing very fast and there are constantly appear new devices and OS versions and new features that currently are not even in Corona Roadmap (like Amazon InApps/GameCircle, Mac Store publishing, iAd/AdMob support, default android permissions issue) and there is no limit and will be even worse (what about Windows 8/Phone/Marketplace?).

What CoronaLabs think about this situation and future development? How you will be able to deal with this growing amount of work?
I don’t want to be an adviser, but maybe you need more developers?

The Queen: Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!
Lewis Carroll “Through the Looking Glass” [import]uid: 9058 topic_id: 31759 reply_id: 331759[/import]

#2

Andriy,

Thanks for the message. Yes, we do need more developers :slight_smile:
That is the reason we are hiring! See:
www.coronalabs.com/about/jobs

We take very seriously the fact that developers have chosen Corona as their platform and we are working hard to build the best possible platform over the long term. While the development of new features may sometimes seem slow, we are definitely putting out things regularly. And we are also making less visible investments in the platform that position us well for the long term. Plus, there is a lot of work involved in just making sure things work well with the existing features/platforms we support (e.g., dealing with new OSs, new devices on existing platforms, etc.).

When you are a developer that is focused on a single platform, it is easy to see the possible issues there (and we hear you!) and not realize that all other platforms face similar issues too. But, rest assured, we are moving forward strongly and are growing to make sure we keep on adding things that our developers need.

Thank you for your support so far. Please feel free to email me any time (davidATcoronalabs)

David [import]uid: 10668 topic_id: 31759 reply_id: 126832[/import]

#3

Hi, I’m not Corona Staff just a fellow Corona SDK developer so these are just my own thoughts…

First let me say I share some of your fears, at some point we even tried migrating one of our apps to MOAI just to see how it goes. Our approach was to build a lua bridging layer that will run our Corona code. We were actually successful in doing so for one very basic game but found that MOAI is much less mature and the API that at first just overwhelmed us proved to be missing some important stuff (like an android keyboard :))

Other than that we ran into several bugs, one that I recall is that scaling a 1px image would not work ( stretching 2px worked just fine…)

But the worst part was the actual deployment. We now had to compile our apps natively the the one click we were used to in corona took us a good 10-15 minutes each time… I loved the openness of that platform but it just meant more work for us…

I think the direction of supporting 3rd party plugins in Corona (which is high in priority as I understood from Walter) is the way to go. This will let CoronaLabs concentrate on the core features of the framework while satellite libs like ads, game networks, and even graphic things like a particle system would be developed in native code by 3rd party vendors. This is a great approach.

One thing I do totally agree upon is the missing transparency… every few months we get some kind of blog/forum post on why the roadmap is not progressing as planned and how from now on everything is going to work tick tock, a new revised roadmap is pubished, but pretty fast it degrades to what we were previously used to - mainly bug fixes/os upgrade compatibilities and such… That’s a shame. I would like to see a BIG feature introduced every few months. [import]uid: 80469 topic_id: 31759 reply_id: 126838[/import]

#4

I’m not an employee either, but I do believe in Corona Labs. We all want more transparency… But at the end of the day Corona Labs can either be working on things or explain why they are wanting to work on things. But when you have a small staff, you have to divide your attention far more than a larger company with dedicated employees who can focus on various topics. [import]uid: 19626 topic_id: 31759 reply_id: 126850[/import]

#5

Andriy,

Thanks for the message. Yes, we do need more developers :slight_smile:
That is the reason we are hiring! See:
www.coronalabs.com/about/jobs

We take very seriously the fact that developers have chosen Corona as their platform and we are working hard to build the best possible platform over the long term. While the development of new features may sometimes seem slow, we are definitely putting out things regularly. And we are also making less visible investments in the platform that position us well for the long term. Plus, there is a lot of work involved in just making sure things work well with the existing features/platforms we support (e.g., dealing with new OSs, new devices on existing platforms, etc.).

When you are a developer that is focused on a single platform, it is easy to see the possible issues there (and we hear you!) and not realize that all other platforms face similar issues too. But, rest assured, we are moving forward strongly and are growing to make sure we keep on adding things that our developers need.

Thank you for your support so far. Please feel free to email me any time (davidATcoronalabs)

David [import]uid: 10668 topic_id: 31759 reply_id: 126832[/import]

#6

Hi, I’m not Corona Staff just a fellow Corona SDK developer so these are just my own thoughts…

First let me say I share some of your fears, at some point we even tried migrating one of our apps to MOAI just to see how it goes. Our approach was to build a lua bridging layer that will run our Corona code. We were actually successful in doing so for one very basic game but found that MOAI is much less mature and the API that at first just overwhelmed us proved to be missing some important stuff (like an android keyboard :))

Other than that we ran into several bugs, one that I recall is that scaling a 1px image would not work ( stretching 2px worked just fine…)

But the worst part was the actual deployment. We now had to compile our apps natively the the one click we were used to in corona took us a good 10-15 minutes each time… I loved the openness of that platform but it just meant more work for us…

I think the direction of supporting 3rd party plugins in Corona (which is high in priority as I understood from Walter) is the way to go. This will let CoronaLabs concentrate on the core features of the framework while satellite libs like ads, game networks, and even graphic things like a particle system would be developed in native code by 3rd party vendors. This is a great approach.

One thing I do totally agree upon is the missing transparency… every few months we get some kind of blog/forum post on why the roadmap is not progressing as planned and how from now on everything is going to work tick tock, a new revised roadmap is pubished, but pretty fast it degrades to what we were previously used to - mainly bug fixes/os upgrade compatibilities and such… That’s a shame. I would like to see a BIG feature introduced every few months. [import]uid: 80469 topic_id: 31759 reply_id: 126838[/import]

#7

I’m not an employee either, but I do believe in Corona Labs. We all want more transparency… But at the end of the day Corona Labs can either be working on things or explain why they are wanting to work on things. But when you have a small staff, you have to divide your attention far more than a larger company with dedicated employees who can focus on various topics. [import]uid: 19626 topic_id: 31759 reply_id: 126850[/import]