Supercard vs. Rev

[curry]

I think it's too bad there's so little "love" shown between different 
xCard environment developers, and to a lesser extent (more goodwill) 
their users. :-)

I've heard about things like Linux desktop conferences where vendors 
of different products work together to inform the public about what's 
available now, to the common good and the advancement of their shared 
interests and market although they have competing products. 
Descendants of HyperCard are certainly receiving less attention than 
they deserve in the world based on their practical merits, so who 
knows, it might be productive sometime if users or even the companies 
which produce the xCard products would do something like this. Why 
not an xCard product and scripting conference for companies, 
developers, and the public? (Of course, the first thing is to find 
good words for calling it, if something is better than "xCard" which 
I don't think is great for consumers.)

Also, from my perspective, I just invest time and money, not my ego 
or sense of self-esteem and security, into the product I use. In 
private conversation I've discussed with others about the need for 
people to convince themselves that they are using the right product 
and have made the right decision in the "road" they've taken with a 
product. I think this probably affects some people in all user 
communities and I've seen confirmation of this behavior in many 
places. I suppose it's a type of loyalty to others which relates back 
to yourself because of investment.

That tendency obviously is there in the mind for a reason and has a 
valid place, as long as it doesn't get out of hand, but as a user 
that has chosen one path I don't mind hearing a bit about the other 
"road" and that could be a good thing if it is productive and not too 
negative, and some of that will depend on responses as well as what 
is being responded to. Just as some collaboration between competitors 
with xTalk products might help to advance xTalk itself and raise 
awareness for customers and developers, some communication between 
users (or even the companies, theoretically although they don't seem 
too friendly looking at their messages toward each other ;-) might 
help users and the products.

SuperCard and Revolution both have strengths and weaknesses that we 
cannot deny, and there's really no reason to feel that one has to be 
vindicated in order to breath easy and continue to use it. Which one 
is better depends on which strengths and weaknesses you are 
enthusiastic about and willing to live with, and what are your needs 
and priorities in using the product. (If you have a lot of money and 
a wide variety of needs, you can have both!) I think everyone will 
benefit by both products improving. Some discussions maybe do not 
belong on the lists and should be elsewhere, and that's up the 
companies and list owners, but it seems some, such as "what's the 
best way for a product to accomplish this task" or "should we have 
this feature, or something else, comparing to the feature of the 
other product" would be very relevant.

As far as RealBasic goes (since it was also mentioned) it has many 
neat and unique features, but if the choice is available, I like to 
work with something based on what I admire and believe is the 
preferable or superior way to do something (the paradigm coming from 
HyperCard) rather than what I see as the standardized but not 
necessarily more deserving way that people have been forced to accept 
(the method coming from Microsoft). You can see the pattern of what 
becomes standardized vs. what is best everywhere--JavaScript was 
mentioned on the Rev list, and in the past there were discussions 
about alternatives to the C language before everyone gave in and shut 
up about it. I see RB as a lot more than the standard because of its 
innovations and style, and think it's a good useful product, but I 
still have to very much prefer using xTalk products and getting the 
benefits of the xTalk advantages as long as they can deliver the 
features I need.

Best wishes to all those using Revolution and SuperCard and I hope 
that xCard in general has increasing success that it deserves 
according to its features!

Curry