Wired HC Article - rev too complicated?

[Dan Shafer]

Richard Gaskin wrote:
>Rev's flexibility in this regard is also a pitfall:  with so many options,
>where do you start?  Thinking in terms of the "progressive disclosure"
>principle (see
><http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/mac/HIGuidelines/HIGuidelines-62.html>)
>I've long wondered whether it might make sense to build a sort of "RevLite"
>UI, something with the bare essentials exposed to let folks get their feet
>wet with confidence.   As they gain more experience and crave more options,
>those options would become available.

Right on! But so easily fixed. By creating a simpler out-of-the-box 
experience using something similar to Apple's "home stack" -- and by 
including some badly needed example stacks and pre-built buttons, 
etc. -- RR could provide this capability without resorting to yet 
another version. this is a project only RR can solve; there's no 
incentive for a third party to do so. yet.

Also with respect to the tool-building argument ("HyperCard is a 
multimedia authoring environment. SuperCard is a tool for building 
multimedia authoring environments."), that's an oldie but goodie. 
Back in the really old days (you ain't got nuthin' on me, Richard!), 
Lisp programmers used to belittle Prolog on the basis that you could 
write a Prolog interpreter in Lisp but you could never write a Lisp 
interpreter in Prolog. I never saw the value of that argument, though 
its accuracy is undoubtable.

I built a ton of tools in HyperCard. And I'm already building some in 
RR. I do think there are levels of development tools, though, and it 
appears to be true that RR is better suited to building other 
tool-like apps than, say, NorPath (which I'll be downloading and 
evaluating this weekend).

>  > Before Apple re-seized HyperCard from Claris, I saw
>>  demonstrated fully color versions of the product running on Mac and
>>  Windows. I had copies of these things (though they were time-expired
>>  and have long since disappeared). They weren't done yet, but they
>>  were clearly proof that the product was viable.
>
>Technically viable no doubt, but did they intend to keep the $99 price tag?

Probably not. I think there was even some talk about forking the 
product so that a cheap HyperCard (Mac-only, black & white) would 
remain available and the new product would be an upgrade/upsell.


-- 
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Dan Shafer
Writer, Spiritual Student and Teacher
Founder, Fellowship of One Mind, Monterey, CA
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