Constellation

[Jerry Daniels]

Ben,

When I first got the urge to write another script editor  
(Constellation), I discussed it with Chipp Walters, Chris Bohnert,  
and Dan Shafer. I also chatted with Richard Gaskin about it. The  
first part of that conversation centered around doing Constellation  
as an open source project.

I think you are right about the nature of team work in the Rev  
environs, but also the nature of the Rev developer is part of the  
reason that we don't have a "traditional" open source movement within  
our community. Developers normally disagree on UI, but Rev developers  
disagree on UI and workflow both. I think this is because we are Mac,  
Windows and Linux users. This makes collaborating difficult. You have  
to have a tall dog in the group to say: "This is the way we're going  
to do it."

And then there's the part you highlighted: the technical nuts and  
bolts of versioning, for which there are tools (Chipp's Magic Carpet,  
for one). I think it may be the non-coding part of team work that  
gums up the works IMHO. One way around that is for one person to take  
a project to a certain point where a commitment has been made as to  
direction and then the following becomes less like herding cats. The  
"Burn the boats!" approach it's sometimes called.

That's kind of what I thought I'd do with Constellation. Get it going  
and then call in reinforcements. My initial focus group didn't think  
it was a realistic idea due to the size of the Rev developer customer  
base and because the technology itself was not "mainstream" enough or  
the "darling" of the right group of techies. I think they were right.

We do have our own way of doing things "openly" though, and it seems  
to work. My code is not locked, for instance, and most other Rev  
commercial products aren't either. I have bought product from Key Ray  
and Chipp. Any time I have a project where I am getting paid, I'm  
more than happy to allocate some of the project money to code,  
libraries and products that make a specific contribution to the  
project. As someone said before...we exchange money with each other a  
lot.

Also, in open source environs, SOMEBODY puts up some money SOMEWHERE.  
IBM, for example, pays a lot of people to contribute to the open  
source community because it is in its best interests. Others donate  
time because they know they will get speaker or consultant fees for  
the knowledge they will accrue in the process of working for "free."  
I think you get my drift here.

I think the way we're doing it is good, but at some point, the  
idealogical, technical and market forces WILL converge or become  
favorable enough to support a more traditional open source movement  
that includes Transcript and/or Revolution.

SO...it's good you bring it  up. Maybe that day of convergence is today.

Best,

Jerry

http://www.daniels-mara.com/products/constellation.htm
Scripts and properties in a tabbed editor! Video tutorials!


On Oct 20, 2005, at 7:43 PM, Ben Fisher wrote:

> Well, I guess Constellation beat me to it... I had also been  
> working on a
> similar script editing interface. It looks pretty nice though.
>  Just a few comments...
>  It seems like a lot of the plug-ins and tools for Revolution  
> lately are
> being sold. There is nothing wrong with this, in fact most of the  
> time these
> products look nicer and are easier to use.
>  However, I am always more attracted to free open-source projects,  
> not just
> because of the price, but also because of the spirit. Developers  
> helping
> each other, one of the reasons I subscribe to this list. If I download
> open-source code, I can contribute to the project. All fellow  
> developers can
> profit from my contributions, and not just the few who can afford  
> to buy.
> Perhaps Revolution is partly at fault: that stacks (not being text  
> files)
> are not as easy to be developed by a team. Or maybe I just belong to a
> different generation of coders?
>  After thriving off of free software for so long, it felt kind of  
> awkward
> for me to spend the money to even upgrade my version of Revolution.  
> Paying
> money just to get the language? I'm sure many other potential Rev  
> developers
> are discouraged by the same type of feelings.
>  I propose that a central website be created, full of code from the  
> Rev
> universe. More structured than a wiki, files would be uploaded into
> categories and directories, but the whole database could be quickly
> searched. Most importantly, there would be a section composed of  
> tools and
> utilities all completely free and open source. I know websites like  
> this
> already exist, but it would be so much cooler if there were one
> authoritative Rev Source.
>  -Ben Fisher
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