who's out there?

[Dennis Brown]

The business model that I would like to see is REALbasic.  Started as  
cheap shareware ($25 I think).  Everybody bought a copy whether they  
needed one or not (I did).  New releases came out about twice a week  
--new features and bug fixes.  Few complained, because they could see  
active work on the problems they encountered.  One guy wrote  
everything.  Eventually it went commercial, but still at a low price  
($50 I think).  It became so popular that the resources were found to  
make it cross compatible to Windows.  The installed base is huge, and  
many developers are making money with just add-ons.  Visual Basic  
developers started to migrate.  The little guy wins.   However, I  
don't like the language at all.

This is what I am hoping for DreamCard.  The price is right, but with  
few releases, the IDE/ docs must be helpful to the beginner,  
otherwise the support toll is too high --or they never get over the  
initial hump and abandon it.  REV is extremely powerful if you know  
hoe to use it, but can be frustrating for doing simple things if you  
don't.  THe way I started is I just learned how to do the most basic  
operations (kind of like a high level machine code) and started  
making things go.  However, there are a few basic concepts that  
appeared to be missing (like indirect references of variables) -- 
discovered the do command to make them work.  This is a good example  
of where the IDE could have made it invisible with a better syntax.   
Arrays are very powerful, but not explained well.  The bi-monthly  
tutorials are a godsend in my opinion for teaching the fundamentals -- 
good job and kudos to all the instructors!!!  The challenge for  
RunRev is to take all this good stuff and package it an such a way to  
make it work for the beginner --along with a few improvements to the  
IDE.

Dennis


On Jun 6, 2005, at 8:24 PM, SimPLsol at aol.com wrote:

>      My accountant had returned from a seminar. The presenter had  
> suggested
> everyone double their prices. One of the accountants in the room  
> protested:
> "I'd lose half my business." The presenter smiled and said:  
> "Perfect, you'd get
> the same revenue - with half the work."
>
>      The flaw in this is that you need a certain volume to get  
> "traction".
> Look at Smalltalk and MC as examples.
>
>      About a year ago the list's resident wordsmith, Richard  
> Gaskin, observed
> that, for Rev "the low hanging fruit has been picked". He meant us  
> - the
> former MC and HC developers. To expand the market Rev MUST appeal  
> to newbys. I
> think this is a very good thing. Making the product solid enough,  
> clean enough,
> and well-documented enough for them will help everyone.
>
>      I have been in this situation for 18 years. I make a business  
> system
> that we sell to companies without IT departments. It has to be  
> good! And so it
> is.
> Paul Looney
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