Why isn't Rev more popular?

[xavier.bury at clearstream.com]

Dan

I dont think the issue is about IDEs that work better - sure there are and 
sure none are as easy as rev.

The problems that i also see as "retro" are the pattern handling (mac 
squared format
only vs any "normal" skin in win32 as widely used in the web interfaces), 
menus not being
always so "standard" - like separators in option menus, lack of color 
cursor support, easy
ID conflicts (and issuing crashes), same with stacks using the same name, 
etc...

While rev is crossplatform, no doubt, the issues encounted porting a stack 
from windows
to Mac or viceversa make the IDE show lots of weaknesses in the IDE. Other 
issues like
htmltext handling, no threading, text style (no per-paragraph alignment) 
or image positioning
based on text baseline or even differently sized paragraph lineheight make 
for a lot of
limitations compared to other IDEs as well. 

Last but not least, when you look at a modern IDE (visual C or 
CodeWarrior), the code 
editors have a bit more punch and virtually no bugs as we've encountered 
in the rev
script editor (and VW or MW) - though these are starting to disappear, 
they still remain
a productivity issue other IDEs do not impose on the developper... The 
best example
here was the debugging breakpoints causing crashes or the lack of array 
editing in
the variable watcher. 

cheers
Xavier

use-revolution-bounces at lists.runrev.com wrote on 02/12/2005 08:47:57:

> Bill......
> 
> Interesting list with some things that hadn't been discussed before.
> 
> Can you elaborate on point 5? Some examles of "modern IDEs" that you 
think
> work better than Rev?
> 
> On 12/1/05, Bill Marriott <wjm at wjm.org> wrote:
> >
> > 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:
> >
> > 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.
> >
> --
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Dan Shafer, Information Product Consultant and Author
> http://www.shafermedia.com
> Get my book, "Revolution: Software at the Speed of Thought"
> >From http://www.shafermediastore.com/tech_main.html



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