Wired HC Article (Rod McCall)

[Troy Rollins]

On Saturday, August 17, 2002, at 05:31  AM, Richard Gaskin wrote:

>
>> ...I do agree that Rev has a ways to go if you wish to use it
>> for multimedia development as opposed to the two other guys (Director
>> and iShell.) Maybe I don't have the same expectations of the tool in
>> that arena just yet. Besides... I really like iShell - for what it 
>> does,
>> its powerful, stable, and extremely fast to develop in.
>
> Why not build an iShell-like UI for the Rev engine?

I believe that has been mentioned before. While we are doing some fairly 
advanced stuff with Rev, I think that you are describing a MONUMENTAL 
task. One which to some degree, the Rev team itself is tackling, and 
they are certainly more capable than we are. Imagine the application 
overview combined with the property palette. Now add in the script 
editor. Allow drag and drop of script components into it. Make it aware 
of all the possible parameters for each script item. Make it track all 
variables, and control most scripting through radio boxes and drop down 
menus. Now make this magic interface display and work absolutely 
perfectly, every time. Now put in some extra multimedia control bits, a 
fantastic debugger (the best I've ever seen)... and so on...

Rev is very, very powerful indeed, and offers many more script 
components than does iShell, but I think the task is larger than we, or 
even the Rev team itself could handle. Currently, the application 
overview itself is one of the least "finished" areas of the program - to 
think that I could hope to make a "super-incredible-enhanced" version of 
it, which works with absolute elegant precision... no, I doubt it. I'm a 
pretty good judge of what we can do, and building a better Revolution is 
not it.

Do I love the idea? Sure. It would be awesome to have a tool that worked 
like iShell that I could easily script and adapt "under the hood". Do I 
expect ever to see that? No, not really - by myself or anyone else.

We're pretty happy with the tools as we have them. Revolution is getting 
better and better all the time. We have built a number of very powerful 
and successful applications with it. We are about to release another 
which is our largest yet. But I don't feel that it answers ALL 
development needs, all the time. And I don't have a problem with that, 
and it doesn't make it any less valuable to me. My home toolbox has both 
hammers and screwdrivers, and I don't try to use one for the other there 
either - and I need both.

Now, if you want to give it a go, please, by all means - have at it. If 
it works out, I'll buy a couple copies...  ;-)

--
Troy
RPSystems, LTD
www.rpsystems.net