When they ask, what is this written in?

[Richard Gaskin]

Chipp Walters wrote:
> Y'know, it would be a cool idea to have a database of all the commercial and
> enterprise apps written in Rev. That way one could point to the list and use
> it as an example of what is and has been done with Rev in the past.

Yep.  RunRev started one but it's pretty sparse, too sparse IMO to 
really give folks a good appreciation for the size and breadth of the 
community:
<http://www.runrev.com/products/testimonials/overview/>

I'll take this opportunity to remind folks here that if anyone wants to 
take on this modest project I'd be happy to provide space at 
revJournal.com for such a listing.

I don't have the time to manage it myself, but I think it would be 
valuable and would provide access and URLs for anyone who wants to 
devote a little time to putting it together.

> Paul, I agree with you. Having Revolution as the company name, name of the
> product and name of the language is quite confusing for many. I prefer using
> Transcript.

Agreed, and I use "Transcript" as well.

When I get this question I usually describe it as a top-secret 
competitive advantage, one that offers more productivity than anything 
else I've worked with.  :)

Making the new Apache module engine available for free will help 
tremendously in evangelizing the language, arguably more so than the 
browser plugin.  It's hard to beat the grace of chunk expressions for 
working with text, and whether HTML or JavaScript or CSS, most of the 
web is just text.

This is a good description:

> Many times I'll describe Rev as a 'Java-like' in that it runs on multiple
> platforms, has a JIT compiler, but doesn't require runtime libraries and
> therefore can be built into a standalone distributable application. I'll
> also mention it's faster than Java and has been around as a stable

Amen to all of that.

I also very much liked Tom's:

   Start with C++ then move to R++ and you've got Revolution....

Another might be:

   It's what Visual Basic could have been if Microsoft wasn't high.

:)


Maybe this is taking the conversation in a direction it needn't go, but 
I can't help but think that if Rev were open source it might well be one 
of the dominant languages of our time, certainly beyond Ruby or even Python.

I should note than I'm not advocating that necessarily, and I understand 
that given where RunRev is that doesn't appear to be a viable option.

But in terms of traction/reach/mindshare/frenzy, it would seem a much 
simpler job of evangelizing the language if it were open source:

The toughest challenge I face in talking about it with potential clients 
is that it's a sole-source proprietary system.

Short of going open source, what might one do to better communicate the 
value of investing thousands of programmer hours in Rev?

Certainly the free Apache module will help, and a truly comprehensive 
list of both commercial products and add-on components would also be 
quite a boost.

What else could be done to make Rev as compelling for serious developers 
as open source languages?

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Managing Editor, revJournal
  _______________________________________________________
  Rev tips, tutorials and more: http://www.revJournal.com