The real Challenge for every development platform

[Alejandro Tejada]

on Mon Jan 24 2005
Dan Shafer wrote:

> Speaking as the only author who has produced a 
> book specifically about Rev (at least as far as I 
> know) and who began his project with the idea  
> of simply converting my HyperTalk Programming 
> best-seller to Transcript, I have a couple of 
> observations on this topic.

Nice to read you on this topic, ;-)

> First, a simple port or conversion is not possible. 
> There are not only subtle differences between 
> Transcript and HyperTalk, but such a book  
> would end up: (a) recommending poor Transcript 
> coding practices and techniques; and 
> (b) be horribly incomplete.

Did you know what i think?

You, alone, try to make "The complete Runtime
Revolution & Transcript Guide", but as you 
already noticed this is an superhuman effort 
for one author.
The full scope of your book only could be reached 
after many months (or years?) working in every corner
and bumping with all the limitations of this
platform, but even then you could start programming
externals dlls or xcmds ;-)

It's difficult to become a master of every topic 
for this software. In fact i suspect that only few of 
the participants in this mail list are fully aware
of all the real capabilities and limitations
of this platform.

CGI, Chat, FTP, http, email, (to name a few) 
are a whole new game in stackware development 
that HyperCard autors barely touch in their 
previous work.

> So I converted about 1/2 of my original HyperTalk 
> book into volume 1 of "Software at the Speed of 
> Thought." It took about four times as much  
> time and energy as I'd originally anticipated. 

You must not work alone in this book.
In fact, if i were you, you must work as editor
of contents produced by long time users of
this platform. In this way, the book will be
finished in months, not years.

> So Kevin and I decided -- and announced some time
ago 
> -- that we would seek a traditional publisher to 
> undertake production of the books.

> I am absolutely open to any great ideas for how to 
> turn Rev books into some potentially meaningful 
> business, but so far nothing we've tried  
> has had even a semblance of success.

The first book is cleary aimed at beginners.
I've read here great reviews of your books from
people that is just starting to learn this
software. But how many beginners, not ex-hypercard
users, are aware of your book???

A great idea is: ask to participants of this
mail list to write chapters or topics in your book
and work as editor for their work.

Ah!!! An keep the book updated in your website...

Don't worry, money will come when all job is done.

al



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