newbie q about revolution

[Josh Mellicker]

On May 21, 2006, at 9:52 PM, John R. Sowden wrote:

> Revolution seems to be my solution for writing business apps.  I am  
> a business
> person, not a professional programmer, but I create all of my  
> internal apps,
> currently in Foxpro/DOS.  A couple of questions:
>
> The description says the program creates "stand alone"  
> executables.  To me
> this means no "run time", no "token compiling", but it may mean  
> external
> libraries.  Is this true?
>
> How big is "Hello World", meaning how much baggage (code bloat) is  
> included in
> the executable?

A basic app will zip down to 1 MB, slightly less for WinXP

(example here: http://www.dvcreators.net/qt-movie-notetaker/)


>
> Does revolution lend itself to creating  simple applications quickly?
> Example, I can create a simple name/address database application in
> Foxpro/DOS with menu, add, edit, search, select index, etc. in  
> about 1 hour
> including creating the database structure.
>
> Is a database application, without multimedia features a good use  
> of this
> product?

I am working on a couple data-intensive multiuser apps in Rev. I  
started database programming in Borland Paradox/DOS in the 80's, I've  
also used FoxPro, 4D and FileMaker, but I am pretty new to Rev, on  
and off learning over the last few months mostly. Over the last  
weekend I've written a bunch of handlers that serve as a library for  
storing and retrieving data from a remote MySQL database and I am no  
longer struggling, but finally coding very efficiently and really  
happy with Rev for a database front end.

I would say it is not as fast as FoxPro/FileMaker to create a simple  
local single user solution. However, once it comes time to deploy a  
solution, especially a multiuser one, my evaluation so far is that  
Rev is the faster, more flexible and powerful tool.

>
> Are there any hidden problems that are not discussed in the web/ 
> faq, etc.,
> like "copy protection" methods that require dongles, keeping the  
> licensed
> program on the computer/lan that the compiled application is  
> running on, etc.

We have sold thousands of copies of an application distributed on DVD- 
ROM (programmed by the great Richard Gaskin) with ZERO problems. Not  
even a single user saying the video was skipping, or the app crashed.  
This is an OS X only app, but our customers have every kind of Mac  
imaginable, from latest and greatest to old laptops and desktops.

We had so many Director problems this was a welcome change!


>
> My operating system of choice is linux (currently Suse 9.3), not a  
> windows os.
> Is this a good match, or is this a windows product that usually  
> runs on Linux,
> with little support?
>
> The old adage, "if it looks to good to be true, it probably is"  
> keeps ringing
> in my mind, but revolution could also be a minimally marketed  
> diamond in the
> rough!
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> -- 
> John R. Sowden
> AMERICAN SENTRY SYSTEMS, INC.
> Residential & Commercial Alarm Service
> UL Listed Central Station
> Serving the San Francisco Bay Area Since 1967
> mail at americansentry.net
> www.americansentry.net
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