Why is Konfabulator 'Pretty?'

[Marielle Lange]

Hi Chipp,

Thanks for the reply. Again, sorry if what I wrote was perceived as  
an attack. Sorry folks, this was not meant to be about you. This was  
meant to be about the other end of the spectrum <BIG grin>.

What you find on runrev ltd frontpage is:

> Revolution Dreamcard is ideal for beginners and (intermediate)  
> developers.
>

When we have somebody complain on the list about the doc or the non- 
intuitiveness of the IDE, this person is not necessarily a professional.


> The Rev docs while far from perfect, are so good that complaining  
> about them tells me more about the griper's lack of experience with  
> other development environments and their documentation than it does  
> about Rev's docs.
>

That's the point... Dreamcard is presented as something that "persons  
with lack of experience with other development environments" can come  
to grip with. Apparently, it doesn't work that well. Beginners often  
complain on this list or elswhere (see <http://www.scottserver.net/ 
forum/viewforum.php?f=70>, a mailing list for dreamcard users or  
beginners in general) about the fact that it is not that easy to get  
to grip with this new environment.


> All that said, I'm for giving away DreamCard with no support. So  
> that students, inventive users, hobbyists, novices, and  
> professionals can use it and learn how absolutely great Transcript  
> and the message path really is. I believe many will eventually  
> upgrade to Revolution.
>

Not that simple. You need a small set of good tutorials and a few  
easy to adapt examples first. Once there is a critical mass, in terms  
of users, tutorials and free to re-use resources will start to  
multiply, thanks to members' contributions. But for that sufficient  
number of users to be there at the first place, something needs to be  
done to help strict beginners transform their evaluation license into  
a paying one. Scripting conferences are "great"! But they are not  
promoted as well as they could and I believe they are more adequate  
for an "intermediate" user, somebody making the switch to revolution  
from another environment.

I had supervised 2 students, new to revolution, for master projects.  
They had access to all material currently available. But they both  
said that without me taking them through and making a small demo on  
how to build a first stack and without the possibility to come to my  
office and ask me "how do I do this?", they wouldn't have been able  
to get to grip with this new environment.

I am not saying that revolution should take care of this (I am not  
interfering with their business). I am only saying that we should be  
a little more understanding when people on this list, like Bill,  
present the konfabulator approach as a way to better serve persons  
completely new to programming. Such persons often want to learn to  
program not because they want to build a complex CMS application but  
because they have seen the konfabulator widgets and the inventive/ 
creative type of person they are would like to be able to do  
something cool like that. You start like that... and thanks to the  
fantastic tool that revolution is, without even realizing it, in the  
course of two years you become a developer.

So, about doing something to improve the visibility of runrev Ltd, I  
said bad idea because this gives newcommers the false illusion that  
dreamcard is something that can help them learn programming. Yes, it  
can in term of capacity, not in terms of beginner support currently  
available. But about writing a few good tutorials to help the  
complete beginners on this list (our fellow users current and to  
come), I say, great idea, let's do it. Feel free to to use any of my  
wiki. If any of you prefers to create another resource from scratch  
(tikiwiki is not perfect for all jobs), then know I would be keen to  
help.

Christmas spirit, time of sharing :-). What about making a few cool  
christmas themed demo stacks. A few things very simple which could be  
a kind of e-card made with revolution?

Marielle

------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
--------
Marielle Lange (PhD),  Psycholinguist

Alternative emails: mlange at blueyonder.co.uk, M.Lange at ed.ac.uk
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