idea: Contest and promoting Rev to the world

[Jim Ault]

Very good response, John Ridge,

(my comments summarized at top, specific comments below)
I like many of the things you said.  Not rambling in my opinion.

-1- It is not fair to think that true gurus on this list can waste time on
building the 'demo' stacks we are talking about.

-2- A seductive tool could be to use ONE REV STACK>cards-groups to present
the sparse utilitarian interface as the first card, then the new user goes
to card 2 for better look-and-feel, and each card adds features/GUI items
that show how a simple idea that should take one weekend, can become a
whiz-bang work of art.

-3- slogan could be "Where do you want to go this weekend?"

-3a- tome could be "If Monks had Macs they'd of yearned for Revolution"

-4- Of course, the last card could be done by Scott Rossi, or someone like
him, to demonstrate the high-art form possible with graphics.

-5- The recent clock evolution on this list could be captured in a stack
showing the different solutions and issues, and the Wow factor, mixing in
the story telling talent of Brian Thomas (of  If Monks had Macs
http://rivertext.com/monks.html)



I agree that we should support Sandy Beadle by testing stacks and
compilations, offering techniques to be installed.  If a stack takes your
interest, Sandy could 'assign' it to you as the shepherd through the
different versions and take some of the work load.

Jim Ault
Las Vegas


On 6/21/05 12:08 PM, "John Ridge" <ridge11103 at btinternet.com> wrote:
 
> I very much agree, Jim. I listened to Dan's speech, and thought he was
> absolutely right. He's said it before, of course, and I blame myself for not
> taking him seriously enough. I have been thinking for a while about putting
> some real money into a prize contest for Rev developers of all levels of
> skill and experience.
Perhaps sponsoring a winner(s) to the next RevCon would get a nibble.
>This looks like a very good focus.  I should emphasise
> that this is quite separate from Bjornke's coding contest, which I think is
> a great idea - but directed at a different goal?
Yes, a different goal, and an important one.
> my recollection was that
> you could suddenly do really neat things that looked way cool, using very
> simple tools and scripts ..
 
> Error-catching seems to me a much bigger deal than it was with Hypercard -
> and a demo stack just has to be bullet-proof. Unfortunately (I gather from
> real developers) this is where a major part of the hard work of development
> goes - the parts that are not fun or glamorous...
Much of the beginner show and tell would be tried-and-true items.  Not much
need for debugging on that level.
> For me this is a real dilemma. I would love to commission or sponsor some
> beautiful software - I mean literally beautiful, as in the Tres Riches
> Heures du Duc de Berry, whatever the 2005 equivalent is ...
Perhaps co-sponsor with the Rev team.

Jim Ault
Las Vegas