Doing What Works
Dan Shafer
dan at shafermedia.com
Sat May 31 17:09:02 EDT 2003
Wow.
All this really interesting reading and discussion about RR's roots and
how exposed they ought to be has left me reeling a bit and perhaps
wandering dazedly in a landscape of the past.
In the end, it seems to me that the following statements remain almost
undeniably true.
1. RR does have its roots in HyperCard.
2. Sometimes, trying to explain a development environment like RR to
someone who either is a "professional programmer" and therefore
disdainful of such things, or a complete newcomer to development and
ignorant of such things, is eased by the HyperCard analogy. I sometimes
tell people who just need a quick summary, "Revolution is like
HyperCard in color on steroids, cross-platform."
3. Whether I should drag out HyperCard, blow the dust off of it and try
to connect it to RR is a situational thing. If I think it'll help, I do
it. If not, I don't.
4. If your programming efforts are carried out in a time or place or
manner where the choice of tool is not relevant to anyone but you,
choose Revolution and be quiet about it, at least until the user loves
what you've done. If someone else dictates your tool, you get to decide
how vociferously you want to argue for RR. (I have a very good friend
who categorically refuses any programming assignment where he's not
free to use Python, e.g.)
I'm using Python, JavaScript and RR exclusively these days. Each has
its place in my toolbox and I won't take a project that doesn't either
specify one of them or leave the choice to me. But I can afford to do
that; I don't depend on programming for my entire income.
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Dan Shafer
Technology Visionary - Technology Assessment - Documentation
"Looking at technology from every angle"
http://www.eclecticity.com
Latest Book Release: "HTML Utopia: Designing Without Tables Using CSS"
(http://www.sitepoint.com/books/css1/)
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