Dan & Malte: O.K., you asked for it. First, though, let me explain my own personal dilemma. I would have to agree with many of you out there, that there are limitations that come bundled with whatever single use tool you commit yourself to. None ever provides everything you wish they did. Though a product like Keynote does many of the things I need, it doesn't do them all and leaves me wishing and waiting for a time when it might. Or might not. User requests for new features only go so far. And moving a megaladon like Apple could prove to be next to impossible.
So, you're right. Revolutioon offers an environment that seems very appealing from that point of view, alone. Make something that does precisely what you want it to do, the way you want it to do it. Expand such a creation at any point in the future. It does, indeed, seem limitless with regard to creative possibilities. So, yes, I'm sold on that aspect of the Revolution offering. But, English-like, or not, I just don't take to programming like ducks do to water. The very nature of performing all the teeny tiny little steps that you must perform to get even the most basic things done is an exercise in patience that may go beyond my capability to endure. I wish it were not so. I wish I were smarter and had the patience of Yoda. Maybe, someday I'll attain to it, but, today, I lack. And, yet, still, I am not averse to trying. I may. But, what, with regard to the available teachers and tutors? Nearly all have been programming so long, that they forget how little the non-programmer understands. You guys and gals out here all speak with the same insider lingo. You don't even know you are doing it, the terminology is so rooted and engraved upon your psyche. You speak in abbreviations and acronyms as often and as unconsciously as the turtledove sings her song. It saves time. And I can understand why you need to save time, observing how long it takes to author applications in any language. If you want US to learn you must have mercy. Don't assume anything, with regard to our background or computer saviness. We are, with respect to the deep waters of programming, essentially morons. But, even morons deserve some kindness and tenderness and longsuffering. Do YOU have that? Understanding some of the phraseology of Transcript still doesn't equip a potential Revolution author with a general framework of how to proceed in any particular direction. What if the application he envisions is not composed of standard application functionality, such as windows, pop-ups, roll-overs, drop down menus, fields dialogs and the like? What if his dream application is composed of visual elements that both need to look and behave like something much different than the above mentioned items? What if his imagined application contains functionality and visual appeal that combine the aesthetics, logic and interaction of a game, a database, a shopping system and a lego set? How would this aspiring programmer even determine if such an ambitious project were within his practical set of abilities? How can he know? Where would he begin, and most of all, where would he find the set of documents that would serve as his knowledgebase for his particular, specialized set of functions and goals. It appears one would have to be operating at the genius level and beyond to cobble together such a system from the vast library of GENERIC transcript actions and functions that are listed and available. Like all programming API's, the Transcript listing is mainly a set of instructions telling the user, "what" each function is, (all in that wonderful programmer's lingo), only sometimes "what" it does, and almost never "why" it does what it does and "when" you would need to use it and for what you would want to use it. All of this leaves the novice still flailing in the dark, not knowing where to turn next. So, inevitably, he will have to post something like "Stupid newbee question" on a forum like this one, irritating the heck out of you experts out there. See, this is where everyone that approaches an application like Revolution will eventually end up. I have had this very same discussion over at the Unity forums, where one must master the foggy, poorly documented, illogical language called JavaScript, (script, my eye!), to make even the simplest, game-like behaviors occur. And the experts can't help but think to themselves, "what a moron," whenever I open my mouth with uninsightful questions. Programming to them, at least at the time they read my ignorant questionings, has become somewhat second nature, and they can't understand why it is so hard to understand. . . . Know-wuddi-mean? Greg Smith -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Dependence-on-Programming-Experts-tf1893108.html#a5190992 Sent from the Revolution - User forum at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ use-revolution mailing list [email protected] Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
