On Sep 15, 2004, at 5:00 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

From: jbv <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Native OS Support [was Re: printRotated on Mac?]
To: How to use Revolution <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854";
        x-mac-creator="4D4F5353"



I know it's a little off-topic, but every time I see a request like
this I am reminded of how many feature requests would be unnecessary if
RunRev supported a way to call the native OS toolboxes.


I can even imagine a nice little business building cross-platform
functions to extend RunRev.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but this can be done via externals...

(As background, I've written a dozen externals for HyperCard)

There are lots of negatives to writing externals, and some big benefits to calling native from within Transcript.

Negatives:
1) you have to code for each platform individually
2) you need a development platform for each platform --- CodeWarrior or XCode on Mac OS X, MSDev on MS, whatever on Linux
3) debugging and testing is difficult
4) you need to release a separate external for each platform
5) documentation for writing externals is sketchy (though supposedly about to get better)
6) there are a dearth of externals currently available as compared the the number that were available for HyperCard, and the number that are available for RealBasic -- this may or may not mean something, but it's certainly a negative when comparing RunRev to RealBasic.


Benefits:
1) much easier development, can be done within the RunRev IDE
2) much simpler debugging and testing, again all within the RunRev IDE
3) release as a single stack with code for all platforms (no externals need to be released or installed)
4) to use all you have to do is "start using" the stack


-- Frank


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