Why isn't Rev more popular?

Bob Warren robertum at brturbo.com
Thu Dec 1 12:47:02 EST 2005


On 11/30/05, Mark Swindell <mdswindell at charter.net> wrote:

 >>
 >> What is the main reason (if there is such a thing) that Rev is not
 >> more popular among professional developers/programmers?  It's been
 >> around awhile now.  People have had a chance to hear about it.  It
 >> has garnered some awards, at least on the Mac side.  On the face of
 >> things you'd think it would  be more popular.
 >>
 >> Just curious to hear what people think.
 >> Mark

When I first saw the above question, I got all welled up with emotion, 
and a thousand ideas invaded my mind. I nearly decided that I would 
prefer to pay attention to my programming tasks, but I found the 
question impossible to ignor.

Someone on the List put it fairly succinctly the other day:
RR is potentially a wonderful programming system, so why do they insist 
on spoiling it all the time?

But it's a simple question which deserves a simple answer. Here's mine:

The Transcript programming language is great, but
THE IDE SIMPLY ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH.

Although I can think of many justifications for this view, I won't bore 
anyone by listing them here at this time.

The IDE is RR's shop window, and if it continues to be so incredibly 
AMATEUR, it will never pull in significant numbers of clients. In my 
view, this is NOT primarily a question of PR as some would have it, but 
a question of PRODUCT HYGIENE. How can anyone hope to sell a marvellous 
programming system with an IDE as flawed and unsupportive as that?

Now that I have been suitably provocative, I will retire back into the 
wings and get on with my programming - if you will let me.

Best regards,
Bob





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