Marketing Rev in Other Worlds

[Ken Norris]

Hi Robert, 
> Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2003 12:50:57 +0200
> From: Robert Brenstein <rjb at rz.uni-potsdam.de>
> Subject: Re: Marketing Rev in Other Worlds (was Re: Script Limits and
> solid IDE evolution!)
 
> Good points. My reading on the recent changes and glimpes of planned
> changes is that Rev is indeed moving in that direction. However, so
> far, the strength of MetaCard were the professional developers (in a
> loose definition of those) and some of the changes along the way (for
> example, the forthcoming removal of dynamic script setting in
> standalones -- the original topic of this thread) may alienate at
> least some of them. What I am afraid of is that on the long term Rev
> will become just another Hypercard. For sure more powerful and with
> more features but not a tool competing seriously for commercial and
> semi-commercial development. Of course, it does not have to be that
> way and we can only hope the that Rev team ways their options
> carefully and do not focus solely on making a quick buck on short
> term.
----------
One thing against this sort of attitude, however is: What about beginners?
HC's strength, as well as it's downfall to some degree, is that it is easy
to learn. Rev's UI may be 'modern' but it is also daunting to beginners, and
not much fun.

What happened to the humor with which most early Mac programs made their
mark? HyperCard is not only easy to start out on, but it is fun and it does
a wonderful job of keeping it functional to where you don't need to look
under the hood unless you're really interested in getting deeper.

At the same time, it spawned a few runts that thought they were instant
geniuses and which resulted in too much crapware foisted into the
marketplace. That undoubtedly contributed to the dark side of its
reputation. Actually, even some of those people saw their errors and learned
to amend their ways and move ahead.

The question, then, is this: How does Rev market its product in such a way
as to appeal to beginners (where else should a beginner go?), while
advancing its ability to produce topnotch professional apps? An IDE with
which anyone can learn and grow at their own pace, and for their own
purposes, without being intimidated.

I think the answer lies in producing sets of simple, well-written,
ready-to-use, easily disassembled stacks and stack templates, together with
explanations of what is happening in the scripts. Something less than the
DB.

Best regards,
Ken N.