Metacard support

[Wilhelm Sanke]

As I will be offline for the next five days, two remarks:

First, I will follow Richard's advice to ask my questions again next 
week when I am back and Rev may have rounded up their new troops by then.

I have done some more benchmarking, which I will report about, 
concerning the relative speeds of the MC and Rev IDEs both for using the 
IDEs during the development and for building standalones. I think I have 
found sort of a "critical mass" of controls where the Rev IDE absolutely 
bogs down (and the MC IDE does not). A sober analysis of the causes for 
these differences - about which I have some private and possibly 
educated guesses -  could maybe be instrumental and helpful for the 
improvement of both IDEs.


Secondly, list members have sometimes used the adjective "spartan" as a 
general characteristic of the Metacard IDE.

Richard alluded to that when he wrote yesterday:

> While you and I are enamored of MC's simplicity, for others that same
> simplicity can be seen as "hellishly spartan" (to use the words of one 
> of my
> clients who prefers Rev).


I have looked up "spartan" in the Britannica World Language Dictionary 
(part of the Encyclopedia Britannica). Here is the entry:

> "Spartan":
> Pertaining to Sparta or the Spartians; heroically brave and enduring.
> A native or citizen of Sparta; hence, one of exceptional valor and 
> fortitude.

Adding what has been reported about the Spartans elsewhere one could 
summarize:

Spartans were "disciplined, enduring, efficient, and powerful".

Another aspect is equally interesting. When the Romans conquered  Sparta 
and other states on the Greek pensinsula in 146 B.C., Sparta remained an 
"autonomous" region inside the occupied area.

So I retract my proposal to speak of Metacard as a "slim" or "power" 
edition of Revolution. "Spartan" - spelled with a capital "S" to 
indicate the extended meaning - would be a much better choice.

Translating the attributes to characterize the Metacard IDE could look 
like this:

"disciplined": concise and relatively short scripts; fewer parts of the 
IDE that are interrelated and interact, organized surface

"enduring": can handle a substantial amount of objects, e.g. controls

"efficient": despite the material load the Metacard IDE maintains its 
speed etc.

"powerful": can be relatively easily customized to one's own needs; 
quicker development because of fewer bugs etc.

"autonomous": deserves to be preserved as an alternative IDE.---


See you next week.

Regards,

Wilhelm Sanke