Hobbyists vs Pros

[Chipp Walters]

This subject keeps coming up..ad infinitum, with some saying the Pros
(defined as people who make their living writing Rev apps) are being smug
and condescending to Hobbyists, as well as anti-this and anti-that.

Most of you know, I'm in the Pro camp. I am able to pay my mortgage,
electricity and buy clothes for my wife and kid solely because of the work I
do in Revolution. I've tried other development languages/scaffolds/IDE's and
find for my clients and our company, Rev consistently outperforms.

Because of this, Revolution, and its' evolution are very important to me. If
the company goes the way of HyperCard or other non-successful commercial and
open source software, it affects me, my company, and especially my family,
considerably.

I have an EXTREME vested interest in Revolution providing a stable platform
for development. It's one of the reasons I am also an Enterprise user and
benefit from Kevin's monthly 'state of the union' posts to the improve-rev
list. As an Enterprise user, I benefit not only from Kevin's RunRev roadmap
and future blueprints, but I also get first crack at beta software. The
improve-list is also monitored by Rev and questions are answered from Mark
Waddingham, the programmer in charge of the last few versions of Rev as well
as future versions.

Just like a house builder generally buys better tools than a hobbyist, many
professional  programmers take advantage of Enterprise licenses because they
get better service and tools as well. And just like the house builders tools
are more expensive, so is Rev Enterprise.

I am NOT an investor in Revolution. I have no direct link to Edinburgh other
than to say 'hello' to Kevin, Heather, Mark and Lynn once every couple of
month in an email. I feel I get GREAT value from the Rev Enterprise
solution- value which goes above much which has been mentioned here on the
use-list in the past few days.

Probably the reason for some of the 'Pro' reaction to the Open Source
thread, is that it REALLY is our livelyhood which is being discussed. Please
imagine if someone suggested changing the tools which affected your ability
to make a living-- I'm sure many of you would also have a problem at some
point.

That said, while many of those of us making a living do have problems with
Rev's approach, from time to time, it is clear to me they have been doing a
great job for the past year. I am secure and confident in providing my
paying clients and customers with a platform choice I believe has legs for
many years to come.

Furthermore, many of us who do make a living with Rev, do try and give back
to the community.

Richard Gaskin hosts revJournal, and has given greatly to the OpenSource MC
IDE initiative as well as providing mutliple stacks of code for hobbyist use
in devolution.

Ken Ray has managed for years perhaps the best website ever for Rev tips and
tricks (www.sonsothunder.com ). He also has among his products a free XML
parser available (and a commercial one, too), and Revzilla, an important
helper in managing bug fixes.

Jacque Gay spent a whole year organizing, creating and hosting a plethora of
training stacks/classroom Rev products, all available free.

Eric Chatonet has created some of the best plugins ever for Rev.

Andre Garzia, Trevor DeVore, Jerry Daniels, Scott Rossi and too many more to
mention have contributed in multiple ways to help this community grow. So,
while it's perhaps fashionable to bash those making a living with Rev, I
sometimes wonder where this community would be without them.

Lastly I'll mention this. I am a hobbyist 3D user:
<http://www.altuit.com/webs/altuit2/vuelab/FutureLab.htm>

I make no money from it, but enjoy using the tool, Vue6-Infinite, immensely.
I also participate in a number of the 3D forums (Renderosity, CGTalk, etc..)
and I find the loudest complainers against Vue6 are other hobbyists. This
isn't meant to say all hobbyists are complainers, just that most of the
disgruntled are not making a living in 3D. I have my own theories why this
is.

-Chipp