BTW I think one should extend the poll to Rev list... I'm wondering if the responses would be similar...
I am very sure that the results will be quite different. My feeling is that dynamic scripting is not something that beginners and hobbysts use much. MC was strongly geared to "professional" developers (whatever that means) whereas Rev went after masses. There was an interesting post by Dan Schafer on Rev list regarding that (I duplicate it below for those who don't subscribe to Rev list). He makes good points and I really think that this is how Rev sees things. Unfortunately, I also think that this means a slow death of Rev as a pro developer tool, although it will continue as a more powerful and more feature-rich hypercard reincarnation. Of course, it does not have to be that way if Rev sees the light. But the changing of script limits, talk about adding smade-with splash, the recent product lineup changes clearly indicate that they are after selling more licenses than worrying about developers producing quality standalone products for distribution to others (paid or not).
Robert Brenstein
Subject: Marketing Rev in Other Worlds (was Re: Script Limits and solid IDE evolution!)
From: Dan Shafer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Revolution List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2003 12:04:24 -0700
This discussion of the need for the RunRev folks to market not just the product but the underlying xtalk/xcard paradigm to the world of Windows in particular raises for me another issue that I think prevents the product from achieving the kind of brilliant "Aha!" success it richly deserves. I refer to the out-of-the-box experience.
When I showed my wife HyperCard a few months before it was released, her reaction was, "I get it. Get out of the way and let me play." Her response to Revolution when it opened was, "What's this? Another programming thing?"
Professional programmers are going to be very slow to switch to Revolution or to any xThing for that matter. It's hard enough to get a programmer to change languages even when confronted with a demonstrably superior alternative (I know; I spent a few years trying to do that with Smalltalk). The real sweet spot market for Revolution, as it was for HyperCard and the other xCard products, is what I have long been referring to as the Inventive User (IU). IUs are people who:
1. Know their computers can do so much more to help them with their work than anyone has yet made them do.
2. Are smart and creative.
3. Can envision the solutions.
4. Are not professionally trained programmers or at least if they were at one point no longer earn their living coding
5. Probably working in a team or workgroup setting where they are the local IT department
Those folks -- and there are millions of them -- NEED Revolution. Badly. But they're not going to take the time to tinker and learn the product after opening Revolution and being faced with a blank screen and a bunch of loosely connected floating palettes. Heck, they don't even get a blank stack window let alone a starting point.
That was HyperCard's genius. Out of the box, it was engaging, enticing and harmless-looking. It *seduced* you into being a programmer. And when it did, you kissed it.
IMNSHO, RunRev should be putting a lot of time, energy and money into creating a dynamite out-of-the-box experience for that category of user. I know how I'd go about that, but it would take a lot of time to develop it and I'm busy writing my books about RunRev at the moment.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dan Shafer, Revolutionary Author of forthcoming 3-book set, "Revolution: Programming at the Speed of Thought" http://www.revolutionpros.com for More Info
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