I've heard about things like Linux desktop conferences where vendors of different products work together to inform the public about what's available now, to the common good and the advancement of their shared interests and market although they have competing products. Descendants of HyperCard are certainly receiving less attention than they deserve in the world based on their practical merits, so who knows, it might be productive sometime if users or even the companies which produce the xCard products would do something like this. Why not an xCard product and scripting conference for companies, developers, and the public? (Of course, the first thing is to find good words for calling it, if something is better than "xCard" which I don't think is great for consumers.)
Also, from my perspective, I just invest time and money, not my ego or sense of self-esteem and security, into the product I use. In private conversation I've discussed with others about the need for people to convince themselves that they are using the right product and have made the right decision in the "road" they've taken with a product. I think this probably affects some people in all user communities and I've seen confirmation of this behavior in many places. I suppose it's a type of loyalty to others which relates back to yourself because of investment.
That tendency obviously is there in the mind for a reason and has a valid place, as long as it doesn't get out of hand, but as a user that has chosen one path I don't mind hearing a bit about the other "road" and that could be a good thing if it is productive and not too negative, and some of that will depend on responses as well as what is being responded to. Just as some collaboration between competitors with xTalk products might help to advance xTalk itself and raise awareness for customers and developers, some communication between users (or even the companies, theoretically although they don't seem too friendly looking at their messages toward each other ;-) might help users and the products.
SuperCard and Revolution both have strengths and weaknesses that we cannot deny, and there's really no reason to feel that one has to be vindicated in order to breath easy and continue to use it. Which one is better depends on which strengths and weaknesses you are enthusiastic about and willing to live with, and what are your needs and priorities in using the product. (If you have a lot of money and a wide variety of needs, you can have both!) I think everyone will benefit by both products improving. Some discussions maybe do not belong on the lists and should be elsewhere, and that's up the companies and list owners, but it seems some, such as "what's the best way for a product to accomplish this task" or "should we have this feature, or something else, comparing to the feature of the other product" would be very relevant.
As far as RealBasic goes (since it was also mentioned) it has many neat and unique features, but if the choice is available, I like to work with something based on what I admire and believe is the preferable or superior way to do something (the paradigm coming from HyperCard) rather than what I see as the standardized but not necessarily more deserving way that people have been forced to accept (the method coming from Microsoft). You can see the pattern of what becomes standardized vs. what is best everywhere--JavaScript was mentioned on the Rev list, and in the past there were discussions about alternatives to the C language before everyone gave in and shut up about it. I see RB as a lot more than the standard because of its innovations and style, and think it's a good useful product, but I still have to very much prefer using xTalk products and getting the benefits of the xTalk advantages as long as they can deliver the features I need.
Best wishes to all those using Revolution and SuperCard and I hope that xCard in general has increasing success that it deserves according to its features!
Curry _______________________________________________ use-revolution mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
