Answer and Ask Dialogues

[David Bovill]

On 15/07/07, Mark Schonewille <m.schonewille at economy-x-talk.com> wrote:

> There are one or two experts who tried this. It appears that closing
> the Rev IDE and firing up the MC IDE isn't that much of a problem.
> Closing the MC IDE and restarting the Rev IDE with all globals,
> locals, properties and everything else in place is a big hassle.
> Until now too big a hassle to get it done.


OK - I have a lot of that already in place for my own environment - so I'd
like to take a look. Who's tried - maybe I can ask a few questions?

But first I'd like to ask about the uses people may have for this. Ill start
with some assumptions - please let me know if I am wrong :)

   1. MC IDE users like the minimal side of things and do not need the
   complexities of the RevIDE.
   2. They have developed their own customized bits - and changing to use
   the Rev IDE slows things down.
   3. Perhaps they just like to stay with the devil they already know?

People used to the Rev IDE, may be interested in the MC IDE because:

   1. Curiosity
   2. They can learn how things work starting with a more minimal basis
   3. Interested in hacking or customising the actual IDE
   4. Like the open source nature of the IDE
   5. Around 60 people have joined this year so the group is maybe low
   volume but alive and well
   6. Other reasons?

I was an MC IDE user for 4 years, changing quite late to RunRev - so I'm
kind of fond of the thing, but my interest is to see if it can be taken to
another place. I'm interested in drag and drop components, and the sort of
features you don't get in either IDE.

I'm also interested in skinning the IDE - not because I like the idea of
skins, nor because I have anything against the cuddly appearance of the MC
IDE, but because I want to separate the appearance from the functionality in
the development environment, and I want people to be able to bundle any part
of the development environment in their own applications much more easily.

But I am not sure yet the best way to do this - so a discussion is very
welcome. The current plan goes a bit like this:

   1. Stick the MC IDE in subversion with wiki based documentation
   2. Sub-license it GPL
   3. Possibly get it working as a plugin alternative to RunRev IDE
   4. Separate GUI from functional code
   5. Modify GUI components so they can dynamically rearranged and
   customized
   6. Beta release a free script limited engine plus new open source IDE
   around September / October
   7. Commercial release of product extending open platform in summer
   2008

If I am roughly right about the reasons people use or look at MC IDE, then
not many people apart from myself will be interested in changing the current
interface in any radical way - so lets treat it as an experiment :)
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