On Aug 25, 2006, at 2:03 PM, John Kubie wrote:
I think you're missing the point.
Not at all
REALsoftware, like any commercial interest, should try to serve
their primary customers. If there are 3 or 300 or 3000 scientific
users a real issue.
Agreed and why I have been asking for better version control
capabilities for ages (literally). A client of mine wanted to move
400 VB developers to something else. They use .Net now instead of RB
(much to my disappointment)
Was this group a "primary audience" ? I don't think so at the time
although the moves to make RB more compatible with VB suggest that
they might be now (although it is too late for this particular client)
It IS hard to sort out who the primary audience is for RB.
Large corporate IT shops ? Science ? Film and media ? Hobyyists ?
I'm not certain what they consider their core market(s).
For example, if you go to Apple's website, and click on "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
you will see four groups: "science", "small business", "creative
pro" and "education". These are, I presume, the groups that Apple
feels can use their products. Furthermore, these are are not
passive, casually identified groups. Apple actively courts each of
these, tries to identify their needs, and, when possible, serve
them. Apple actively forms links to each community.
Should REALsoftware do this for science? That is their decision.
But it is not simply a question of whether REALbasic fits the needs
of scientists. If REALbasic and science are a good potential fit,
this is a connection that should be clarified and strengthened.
Taking in to account the varying resources of the two companies
(financial and personnel) there is only so much that REAL can do.
How would you see RB strengthen their ties to the scientific
community ? Specific extensions to the language ? The IDE ?
That is the core product and if it works in a particular community
great. Use it. If it does not then don't.
Should they create specific forums for RB science usage ? Maybe.
Specific examples, classes, etc ? More stuff to have an already busy
team do (I'm sure they'd appreciate that)
Sometimes limited resources means that unless someone at REAL takes
it on as a personal pet project it simply can't or doesn't get done
not because it shouldn't but just because of resource limits.
Don't get me wrong, I think REAL should do whatever they can BUT they
have to support the communities that they can make money at.
From where I sit getting a significant portion of VB development
shops to use RB would double the RB installed base.
This may/may not include "scientific" community usage. The shop I
mentioned above did have about 30 developers working on fluid dynamic
simulations to run a pipeline. This might not normally be considering
"scientific community" usage since it is a large commercial IT shop.
And, in the long run there are LOTS of things that REAL could do that
would address the needs of many developers in many sectors.
More compiler optimizations would help everyone regardless. A faster
IDE helps everyone. And there are lots more great ideas in the
feedback system already.
All that said what would YOU like to see REAL do to reach out to this
community ?
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