Analyzing competitors - In this case Real Software

[Jesse Sng]

>I have my own theories about the best audiences for RR to pursue, 
>and I won't burden the list with them because I don't get to vote 
>anyway, but those abandoning VB isn't on my list.
>
>dan

Those abadoning VB want to go to something that allows them to get 
their apps up and running with very little code changes. They have an 
existing investment in their codebase and need to move it.

The differences between VB and Rev are so fundamental that it would 
require learning a totally new paradigm and this is not something 
that many in-house corporate developers would bother. Many of them 
also would stumble over their misconceptions about dealing with a 
scripting language as opposed to a compiled language like VB and all 
the usual debates over code performance will be thrown about.

>RB, which after all uses the same basic (pun intended) language and 
>development paradigm as VB, is in a much better position to capture 
>those refugees than RR is.

This is true for developers who don't mind picking up a new 
development environment, but many aren't going to want to do that. If 
they were building a new app, that's a possibility, but the fear 
would be that the cost of rewrites is prohibitive when coupled with 
the cost/time of learning RR.

Those who have had experienced with similar environments to RR have 
no problems with this and it probably only needs a few minutes 
reorientation to get off the ground. Not so for your VB developer.

For a professional developer (as opposed to in-house), picking up a 
new environment that's going to save you a tremendous amount of time 
is not a problem and is definitely a plus.


Jesse