DreamCard Review-PCPLUS

webmailman webmail at xasamail.com
Wed Dec 22 08:30:06 EST 2004


Dreamcard2.5 slammed hard by PCPLUS!
Rating: 4 of 10

Time to wake up and smell the coffee, Revolutionaries!


In issue 224 (Christmas 2004), Paul Hudson gives readers his insights into Dreamcard 2.5. Here are a few excerpts:

"An integrated development environment designed to allow non-programmers to become programmers. Bizarrely designed to make even the simplests operations difficult beyond belief, VisualBasic.NET is faster and a great deal easier to use."

[Tranlsation: Non-intuitive interface is a severe handicap. VB.NET is easier for beginners.]


"If you're a non-programmer and want to stay a non-programmer, for goodness sake use PowerPoint, Access, Visual Basic for Applications, or some other tool you already have. If you want to become a programmer, this is perhaps the finest example of how not to do it--stick with Visual Studio."

[Translation: For typical office and home users, use your existing MS tools; they're more than adequate for most of your needs. If you want to test the waters of becomming a programmer, don't waste time with DreamCard; go directly to Visual Studio.]


"The GUI looks easier than it is--full marks go to the menu bars for total confusion."

[Translation: What were they thinking when they came up with the ridiculous tool bar system?]


"As with other graphical IDEs, you can drag and drop components directly onto your window and manipulate them visually--at this point you're thinking that sounds something like VB.NET.  Sadly, that vision is cruelly shattered when you try to make your GUI do something. Adding functionality throws you into the deep-end, grasping wildly for some sort of documentation to help you out. Documentation there is, but it doesn't help you."

[Translation: There is ducomentaion, but the design sux so bad as to be next to useless.]


"The 'programs' you make now that you're a programmer get run through DreamCard Player, which is a great way to burst the bubble of professionalism in just three easy steps."

[If you want your presentations to look profesional, better stick with tried-and-true tools that you probably already know, like PowerPoint.]


Looks like some re-think is in order...



    http://www.xasamail.com/


More information about the use-livecode mailing list