Why choose Revolution

[Ken Ray]

On 7/23/05 12:05 PM, "J. Valle 1234web.net" <jvalle at 1234web.net> wrote:

Hi Jose,

First of all, thanks for posting your questions to the list... I know a
number of us will respond, but since I use both RealBasic and Revolution
(although a lot more Rev than RB), I figured I might be in a unique position
to respond.

BTW: I would recommend submitting your post to the RB list as well if you
haven't already - it's always best to get comments from both "sides".

> I've been playing for a couple of days with Revolution and Realbasic,
> researching trought the lists, looking for the right tool to develop
> cross platform commercial applications, but the main target platform
> would be Windows and both tools looks specially focused on Mac OS.

Actually, RB started on Mac and went to Windows and then finally Linux,
whereas Revolution (which used to be called MetaCard) started on Linux, went
to Windows, and then Mac. This means that there has been a Windows version
longer than a Mac version. So I think that at least in Rev's case, the
reason why it may look specially focused on Mac OS has more to do with
marketing than it does on capabilities. I develop cross-platform stuff and
find it equally enjoyable on either platform.
 
> Seems that Revolution has a loyal base of users but is less popular than
> Realbasic, also a lot more expensive, the way documentation is organized
> is not exactly intuitive and the main con is their exotic language and
> programming paradigma.

Let's start with pricing... you need to compare apples with apples here -
RealBasic is $99 for the standard version, but that only lets you develop
and *deploy* to a single platform. The Pro version is $399 and gives you
cross-platform compliation. And if you want to develop on multiple platforms
you need to buy a version for each. Revolution Studio is $299 and lets you
develop on a single platform, but deploy to *all* platforms. So Studio is
actually $100 cheaper than RB at this stage. If you only care about Mac and
Windows, you can add an extra platform for $199, which makes the total cost
about $500 to develop on both Mac and Windows. RB would cost your $800.

As to the documentation - you're right: it's not exactly intuitive, but
RunRev knows this and has been working hard to improve the docs (this is the
second iteration (third?) of the documentation and it keeps getting better.

For "exotic language", I have to say that it is not as exotic as you
think... it is an "x-Talk" language, and xTalk has been around since the 80s
and has been implemented in at least 8 different development environments
that I'm aware of (HyperCard, SuperCard, MetaCard, Revolution, HyperSense,
ToolBook, Plus/ObjectPlus/WinPlus, Oracle Media Objects).

I'm assuming you come from a Basic background, and it is definitely a
different animal. But it's english-like syntax and robust message-passing
model makes it an extremely flexible programming tool.

Geoff Canyon did a comparison whitepaper between the two environments in
2001, which although it is 4 years old still hots a lot of clear information
about the differences between the two tools:

  http://www.inspiredlogic.com/whitepaper/index.html

> Then the questions are:
> - Why should choose Revolution instead Realbasic? comments from people
> using both tools would be greatly appreciated

Well, a lot of my comments are covered in Geoff's whitepaper, but some
additional reasons would be:

- The fact that you can code and test immediately without having to compile
first. This makes development very fast.
- The message passing hierarchy and the ability to override messages. You
can put no code in objects and have the messages trapped at the card layer
(or lower) and execute things conditionally based on who the target of the
message is.
- Rev's ability to manipulate string data is second to none, IMHO, due to
chunk expressions, like:

  put word 2 of item 3 of line 1 of myVar into field "Test"

To do this in RB would require multiple lines of code and wouldn't be as
readable.

Additionally you can populate a list field or a popup menu by putting a
multi-line text varaible into the field/button in one go:

  put tUserList into fld "Users"
  put tUserList into btn "UserPop"

In RB you have to iterate through each line and add it to the list in a
loop.

- Rev also can do a lot of things with colors and patterns that can be done
by simply setting properties, whereas in RB you need to set up a Canvas
object (or equivlent) and paint it.

Basically it all boils down to speed and ease of development, combined with
the ability to wait until the last minute to build your standalone
applications for any/all platforms.

There are two things that RB has that Rev doesn't (yet) which may make the
difference on your decision-making:

1) RB is truly object oriented (i.e. you can create/manipulate classes and
work with instances of those classes). However keep in mind that most of
what you want class/instance behavior to do can be easily simulated in
Revolution - it's just that it's not *true* OO.

2) RB allows access to the Mac and Windows APIs directly; Rev doesn't.
Although I've found that 90% of what I might have wanted to get/do with the
API is native to Rev's functionality, so I haven't missed it much.

> - Is this a mature tool to develop cross platform applications?

Absolutely!

> - I suppose that maturity is not a problem for Mac, but what about
> Windows and Linux?

Definitely for Windows; Mac and Windows developers are the lion's share of
RunRev customers AFAIK, and so the Linux version has some bugs in it that
make it less stable. Of course, the RunRev guys are working on these.
 
> - What are the differences between Studio and Enterprise version? a
> comparison table on your site would help to decide.

Well, there *is* a comparison table, although it is by no means
comprehensive:

  http://runrev.com/section/platform.php

Basically it comes down to two things: platforms and add-ons.

- If you want to have the flexibility to develop and deploy on everything,
and have all the add-ons, pick Enterprise.  ($899)

- If you want to develop and deploy on multiple platforms, but don't need
SSL or Oracle support (or don't mind paying for the add-ons later), pick
Studio for your primary platform, and purchase additional editors for the
other platform(s) you want. ($299 for 1st platform, +$199 per add'l
platform)

- If you want to develop and deploy on a single platform, pick Studio.
($299)

Functionally both Studio and Enterprise are identical, although Enterprise
comes bundled with the SSL and Oracle DB add-ons.

Hope this helps,

Ken Ray
Sons of Thunder Software
Web site: http://www.sonsothunder.com/
Email: kray at sonsothunder.com