I think it's important to point out that, without exception, every single application, or the developer of the application, you mentioned below predate RB being a viable software application development platform.
For instance: OmniGraffle : Comes from OmniGroup. One of the few companies that started with NeXT and become very heavily involved in the Objective-C world. They obviously have very much stored knowledge in that environment, and therefore would be silly to throw away on a new tool Delicious Library : Made by the guy who started Omni Group. Objective-C is, at this point, a first known language to him. Photoshop, AfterAffects, other Adobe and Macromedia apps : All started waaaayy back in the 80's. And for the later apps like Dreamweaver, well... the quality of that app isn't exactly what I would call impressive, and that was also started back when RB was at like version 1 or 2 (if that) iPhoto, iTunes, Apple apps. Which do you think Apple will use? Their own, homegrown dev platform, or RB? And to boot, iTunes was developed first using CodeWarrior. Again, before RB was a real platform in the late 90's. 3D. All the apps you mentioned also predate RB for the most part. And, even if you were developing now (which, I suppose you could), I imagine that for the best performance, you'd want to develop as close to the hardware as possible. Even if you were doing C# or Java or something, you'd probably still use C++ or C for the 3D manipulation and raytracing routines. In terms of power of RB to create similar apps as the above. I've been using RB now for about 4 years, and in all of that time, I can say that about 90% of the "lack of power" I have with RB is the lack of my own skill and abilities. True, using the Cocoa framework and Objective-C with Xcode gives you some nice things "for free", but at the end of the day, most applications are built on logic that pushes data from one place to another, regardless of their user interface. RB is quite capable of this feat. It takes time to develop to excellence, wether it's RB or your own product. Very few are going to be able create an application that, at version 1, 2 or even 3 is going to be a world class super app. When that happens, though, it'll be because the talent of the developers, the vision of the designers and the quality of the coding. You tool belt can help you only so far in letting you make what you want to make, it all comes down to personal talent and perseverance in the end. For better or worse, RB has, at least in my opinion, only become really "usable" since v5.2 Unfortunately, I think RB also took a hit going to the 200x platform, but it'll be one that can grow farther then the 5.x platform, so I'm (grudgingly) happy to take the short term loss for the long term gain. There are certain real limitations of RB at this time, from group project management to UI issues, however, I would look at RB to being as viable a solution as Java is now. I would look at it to be even more viable then Java to some extent in regards to its quick application dev environment and ease of maintenance. - Corey > On Feb 13, 2006, at 6:30 PM, Bryan Lund wrote: > >> So... yes. Regardless of what your definition of "quality" and >> "commercial" are, there are applications that will meet that >> standard that have been (and are being) developed in REALbasic. > > Sorry. I'm not talking about shareware utilities. I'm talking about > solid, popular, commercial applications... OmniGraffle, Delicious > Library, iPhoto, Photoshop, AfterEffects, Flash, DreamWeaver, iTunes, > ANY 3D application, like Cararra, Cinema 4D, Lightwave... serious, > real applications which are solid, professional, and popular. Nothing > mentioned so far would meet the criteria. This is not to say that > applications like those from RadicalBreeze and others are not good > utilities, but they aren't in the league of those I've mentioned. And > until RB can create apps like those, it isn't going to replace Xcode, > Codewarrior, or even Delphi. I'm not down on RB. I just don't believe > it is powerful, or stable enough to deliver applications of world > class quality, and so far, no one has proven different. > > RealBasic itself is probably its own best example right now. But the > fact is, it is buggy as hell, has no support for multiple developers, > and IS NOT written entirely in RB. > > To be honest, I've seen FAR more professional applications delivered > with Macromedia Director than RealBasic. The only advantage RB offers > is native controls. > > It is a great environment for little utilities (like alarm clocks), > and cross-platform vertical market apps, but I don't expect to see > anyone make anything world-class with it, and therefore the thought > of it killing Xcode seems kind of far-fetched. > > No, I'm not an Xcode user. Most of my apps lately have been done in > RB. But I think I have a realistic view of what it can and can't do. > If it can do more, no one has proven it to date. > > -- > Troy > RPSystems, Ltd. > http://www.rpsystems.net > > > _______________________________________________ > Unsubscribe or switch delivery mode: > <http://www.realsoftware.com/support/listmanager/> > > Search the archives of this list here: > <http://support.realsoftware.com/listarchives/lists.html> > _______________________________________________ Unsubscribe or switch delivery mode: <http://www.realsoftware.com/support/listmanager/> Search the archives of this list here: <http://support.realsoftware.com/listarchives/lists.html>
