Why isn't Rev more popular?

[Bill Marriott]

This comes from the perspective of an occassional (but loyal) RunRev user 
who's been in the software industry nearly 25 years...

Fourteen Reasons Why I Think Rev Is Not More Popular:

1) About five to seven years behind the curve in UI. The reason why programs 
like "Konfabulator" get the attention is that they create widgets/programs 
that look modern/exciting, almost "by default." The same look-and-feel can 
be created with RunRev, but it's a lot more difficult.

2) Lack of heavyweight partnerships. If I were RunRev management, I would be 
in talks with Linspire to create a super-sexy version optimized for that 
platform, including using the Linspire look-and-feel, integration with the 
Click-and-run tool, that sort of thing. Linspire could use a "native" 
programming tool, and RunRev could use the press, publicity, and usage.

3) Lack of integration with (or even much awareness about) the Web. It's 
astonishing that altBrowser or a component like it is not integrated into 
the platform. It's also really surprising that we don't have a more robust 
way to get RunRev running as a CGI (I know there's a tutorial out there, I 
gave it my best effort, I failed, and I gave up. I imagine it's easy enough 
if you're running a web server from a Mac or your own machine, but what 
about for those of us using one of the ubiquitous Linux/CPanel-based hosting 
providers?) Finally, where is the browser plug-in that gives us a sandbox to 
present RunRev stacks online? Look how well this worked for Flash!

4) Lack of 3D support. This is a major reason why people still turn to 
Macromedia Director. Great 3D interfaces, including games, could be rapidly 
developed in Rev, except there is no 3D support to speak of.

5) Retro IDE. There have been improvements over time, but it's still kinda 
long in the tooth. Just playing with a modern IDE for a while gives me all 
kinds of shivers at what could be possible if Rev picked up the pace. So 
many things are missing from it. Why should people have to keep reinventing 
the wheel for things like saving preferences and outline controls, and 
whatnot?

6) Not enough like HyperCard. When Apple came out with HyperCard, there were 
all kinds of really usable stacks that did things people wanted to do. 
There's no such thing in Rev or Dreamcard nowadays, yet there has never been 
a greater need for it. People would love to have an email client they could 
customize and automate. How about a few example stacks that show you how to 
automatically log into your bank's website and download transactions? A PIM 
manager that collects information from MSN, Yahoo, AOL, Outlook, your Palm 
device, and keeps it all in one place? Something that lets you build, 
customize, and maintain a blogging site? A replacement for, or front-end to, 
Media Player?

7) Database tools. I don't mean stuff like the SQL integration; I mean a 
nice module like FileMaker-lite which would let you define fields, establish 
relationships, build calculated fields, generate reports, etc. Bonus points 
if they could manipulate external databases like SQL as well as an 
"Internal" store.

8) Output and reports. Still really hard to generate, and not the nicest 
results.

9) The text engine. Should be on par with what HTML can do, if not allowing 
for actual HTML/CSS formatting in fields.

10) Graphics support. Xara Xtreme recently made the announcement they were 
going to go open source. They're fairly close by. I would take a field trip 
to the Xara mansion and try to work out something with these guys where Xara 
could be the graphics engine for Rev and Rev could be a scripting engine for 
Xara. Should be easy to import and export SVG and other formats as well.

11) Documentation. Need to have a $24.95 - $39.95 book comparable to Danny 
Goodman's famous HyperCard book, in book stores, that lets people learn 
Rev/DreamCard outside of the online documentation.

12) The discussion list. I think we're well beyond the days when an email 
list is the ideal way to go. Why can't we have a nice, phpBB- or 
vBulletin-based board where threads are kept nicely organized, etc.? Again, 
the community support like other aspects is like living ten years in the 
past. (These boards still allow for receiving digests in email, and/or 
subscribing to threads.)

13) General flakiness. I have had Revolution simply disappear in the middle 
of editing a stack, losing my work, more than a couple times. I've spent 
hours debugging problems that disappeared when I recreated a stack from 
scratch. I'd have to give Rev a "B" grade on robustness and stability.

14) Not advancing the HyperTalk (Transcript) language further. New features 
tend to come in the form of functions instead of English-language stuff that 
makes this language a joy to use. The code is looking more and more like 
JavaScript (ugh).

This list of course doesn't address all the reasons why I really like 
Revolution and why I keep my license current. I do think that in general 
it's better to have more users of a programming language, otherwise it tends 
to die out like an obscure religious sect.

Bill