[Semi-OT] Interesting article

[Marielle Lange]

> The proof by the absurd! Well done Marielle!

You show a good ability to read between the lines :-).  I have been  
reading a huge deal on web applications recently. Honestly, it made  
me anxious about the future of revolution.

> My thoughts are that rev needs a new graphic engine below the new  
> object
> model...
> If windows' GUI and HIGs are not improved, and like opengl, you  
> refuse to
> integrate it, im certain rev will not last another 5 years... We  
> can't be
> stuck in 1990's plain color technology forever...

Agreed on this. But the major hurdle is even before users get to  
complain about the low graphic quality.

A ***VERY*** important limit is the revonline solution. All stacks  
produced by the community are ***hidden****. How can you hope attract  
new users if you cannot show them anything sexy. I did set up the  
education gallery to help out. The scripting conferences are stored  
as stacks, etc., etc.

I don't get it. Revolution's company has pure gold in its hands. If  
revolution had spent a bit more more effort on the good look, good  
website and attractive demo applications, it would have taken the  
place of konfabulator, dashboard, and all the other ones that start  
to appear. But it hasn't and nearly 3 years after the launch of  
runtime revolution (2002, I believe), I am still not in a position to  
convince colleagues and friends to adopt revolution because they are  
unable to understand what revolution is about. That's to attract  
newcomers that I designed the revolution wiki and the education gallery.

I wonder, what has been the "oohhh, this is interesting" moment for  
the new users on this list. What was the page or document that  
convinced them to pay closer attention to revolution, look for more  
information and download the trial version? Was it the runrev website  
alone or rather some page or content contributed by members of the  
community?

I am not from an Hypercard background (too young, PC user in the 80s  
and early 90s). My path was:
(1) Coming across the "beyond the browser" article when looking for  
4GL languages (I was actually actively looking for an application  
like revolution). http://www.fourthworld.com/embassy/articles/ 
netapps.html
(2) Paying a visit to the runrev website, this really sucks (that was  
before the makeover). Where can I find the information I need. How  
much does it cost? Ho my god, I need to start a transaction just to  
get to know the price of this product. Installing the demo  
application. Heeee, this is good.
(3) http://www.tactilemedia.com/download/  This is **really nice**
(4) http://www.sosmartsoftware.com/?r=logiciels&l=en This is **clever**

Revolution is the *perfect* solution for rich web applications (but  
the 10 lines of script limit is a serious handicap, there should be a  
license that would allow to get rid of it). It is a fantastic  
solution for the academic community. It's an excellent Development  
Environment for software composition (doing the gluing and  
interfacing between specialized applications). So why is there so  
little mention of it out there on the web?

Google hits:
dreamcard revolution: 7,940
dreamcard: 20,500
"macromedia flex": 107,000
"dashboard widget": 198,000
konfabulator:     920,000
laszlo: 3,010,000
"web application": 7,430,000

If you want to help, be the first user to rate it at download.com:
http://www.download.com/Dreamcard/3000-2207_4-10377428.html? 
tag=pop.feed&tag=feed&part=cnet

Marielle

--------------------------------
Marielle Lange (PhD),  Psycholinguistics, Lecturer in Psychology and  
Informatics
University of Edinburgh, UK

Homepage:  http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/mlange/
Lexicall project: http://lexicall.org
Revolution-education project: http://revolution.lexicall.org