Dependence on Programming Experts

[Richmond Mathewson]

Troy wrote:

"The fact that Lingo is probably the most successful xtalk in history" 
which seems to be a meaningless statement:

1. Lets be 'gross materialists' - if we measure volume of sales does that 
    mean that Lingo is successful?

After all, when I worked at the University of the United Arab Emirates in Al Ain 
they ordered 10 copies of Director: I worked for about 6 months developing 
a series of Windows-based EFL programs - the other 9 copies mouldered on 
the shelves because none of the other EFL instructors could be bothered to learn 
how to use the thing.

2. Surely what measures a programming language's 'success' is not how many
copies of the editing suite are sold, but how many programs (stacks?) are produced
and how many of those end-products are sold, where they are deployed, and so forth.
AND that is impossible to gauge.

3. If you want you can believe the 'nonsense' that is written on  websites owned by
the companies that produce the editing suites. This is rather like people who rush
out and buy things that they see advertised on the television because they have been
endorsed by some football player (who, while being a superb footy player doesn't
know anything about cholesterol in margarine).

4. You can choose to believe the nonsense spouted by devoted users of editing
suites (c.f. Macintosh bigots, Windows bigots, Linux bigots) - this is also
unwise.

Probably the best thing is not to give a ******** about anybody's measure of
success but put aside the time to work with the editing suite.

At least (!!!!!!) Runtime Revolution will let you have a completely uncrippled
editing suite for a month to "play with".

To end this long, pompous outburst (Boy, Oh boy, Troy Rollins has a bad 
effect on me!) I have worked with:

Toolbook
iBuild
That thing from Roger Wagner - Hyper-thingy that is such ***** I can't even remember its name
All the Macromedia lot

a whole lot more (c.f. my MSc thesis at my Yahoo-Group)

Hypercard-Metacard-RR

and RR strikes me (subjective statement) as the one that I can work with most 
efficiently and to my taste. And, as the Pope said in the Monty Python sketch;

"I may not know much about art, but I know what I like!"

sincerely, Richmond Mathewson

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"Philosophical problems are confusions arising owing to the fluidity of meanings users attach to words and phrases."
                                       Mathewson, 2006
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