Rev_rant part 3

Bernard Devlin revolution at knowledgeworks.plus.com
Fri Nov 10 12:44:00 EST 2006


Dave said:

 >>
In my opinion RunRev should concentrate
on one "Bug-Fix" release and fix as many old bugs as possible without
adding too many (if any) new features. I really think the IDE needs a
big overhaul, since this is the first thing a new user sees.
<<
As I say, I do not experience Revolution as a bug-ridden tool, and I  
don't see why the IDE needs a big overhaul.  I can find you long- 
standing bugs in Lotus Notes and WebObjects, tools by companies much  
larger than Runrev.

Since there has been a lot of loud complaining about this in the past  
few months by several others, maybe such a release is required.  It  
could well be that since I have only been a dabbler in Revolution for  
the past few years, I haven't been caught by the long-unfixed bugs  
that people are complaining about.  I will repeat what I have said  
before -  because of users moaning about the inadequacies of the  
documentation Runrev have put a lot of effort into converting what  
was already excellent documentation - it's now in XMl and in PDF, and  
there are even beginner's tutorials in both PDF and Video.  Runrev  
also produced a forum because there was plenty of moaning about there  
being a mailing list but not a forum.  (I'm almost tempted to go back  
over the list archive and see who those people were,  to see if they  
are still around and if they are actually using the forum).  There  
were complaints about the externals interface - it was re-written.  I  
think Runrev have been more responsive than any other development  
company that I've been involved with.  In fact, my belief is that the  
loud complaints about the documentation in the past were probably  
unfounded.  I actually find myself going back to my install of 2.2.1  
to use the documentation because for me that was the high point for  
the documentation.

It could be that in the attempt to make programming in Rev more  
accessible they have taken their eyes off the ball WRT to some bug  
fixes.  Or maybe they are hard to fix.  I would welcome this great  
bug-fix version too (even though I obviously live in a parallel -  
maybe even pollyanna - universe).  I understand that other people are  
probably using Rev far more actively than I have been, and have been  
feeling some irritation with long-standing bugs. But if you look at  
the change logs for 2.7.4 you will see that many IDE bugs were fixed.

 >>
why doesn't RunRev just license one of the existing 3rd party IDE and
make that the one they ship when you buy a RunRev license?
<<
I like the Revolution IDE.  I like it more than the MetaCard IDE.  I  
like it more than Constellation.  I haven't even gotten round to  
trying Galaxy, even though I have a license for it.  I like the Rev  
IDE a darn sight more than Emacs, or Eclipse, or the Domino Designer  
IDE, or Dreamweaver, or Filemaker, or Wirefusion, or Applescript  
Studio/XCode.  In fact, I think I prefer it to any other IDE.  Of  
course there are some inconsistent behaviours, and it would be nice  
to have them fixed.  But they don't irk me enough to see if they are  
in bugzilla, and they certainly don't irk me enough to complain to  
the list.

Bernard


More information about the use-livecode mailing list