Rre: Dependence on Programming Experts

[Richard Gaskin]

Chipp Walters wrote:

> You, Sir, give yourself away by endorsing adding further complexity to
> the engine (more parsing, more tokens, etc..) and perhaps even slowing
> it down, which the real Richard Gaskin NEVER would have stood for.

What changed my opinion in favor of the proposal to support the world's 
most common assignment operator is that it doesn't add any new tokens to 
Rev at all.

On the contrary, the equal sign is already used as an assignment 
operator, so the proposal merely removes an unnecessary ambiguity in 
which the equal sign can sometimes be used this way and sometimes not.

Those arguing against using the assignment operator consistently might 
start with suggesting removing its current usage for script-local vars. 
  Good luck with that. ;)


> Furthermore, your call to 'unify LINUX' is completely against your
> roots in "use the best tool (IDE) for the job" as you and I both know
> the Real Richard Gaskin would never stand for such a forced merger of
> the MC IDE and REV.

The two main differences are between developer APIs, and in the 
marketing to end-users of a whole-solution:


Developer APIs
--------------
Multiple IDEs are useful to the degree that they don't make developers 
craft one-off solutions for each of them.  It should be possible for 
IDEs to support at least a reasonable baseline of interoperability.

You may recall that I participate in the Rev Interoperability Group 
which addresses that set of concerns:
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/revInterop/>

In contrast, the various Linux GUIs are largely incompatible when it 
comes to even baseline core essentials like file associations and 
"Registry" equivalents, with no collective effort equivalent to 
RevInterop group to reduce or eliminate API differences among them.


End-user Marketing
------------------
The MC IDE, Constellation, FreeGUI, and any other IDEs differ from the 
various Linux distros in that these IDEs do not claim to be a whole 
product.  On the contrary, these are all clearly optional add-ons, and 
wherever any other IDE can be found there are references and direct 
links back to the mother ship -- all roads lead to RunRev.

In contrast, each new Linux distro is presented as a whole product, 
without references reinforcing a centralized main product.  So for 
end-users, there is no "Linux" per se, but instead a dizzying array of 
dozens of competing products all claiming to be "Linux", requiring that 
the end-user study them to make a choice that's most effective for them.

If these distro vendors could -- like the Rev community -- all get 
behind a main product and create variances of the experience which are 
clearly secondary add-ons, it would serve both goals simultanously: 
diversity is available, while a central product is reinforced.

-- 
  Richard Gaskin (the one and only, for better or worse)
  Fourth World Media Corporation
  ___________________________________________________________
  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com       http://www.FourthWorld.com