Transcript should be called Transcript

[Richard Gaskin]

Richmond wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> First of all; in computer programming languages everything
> must be explicitly stated, while in human languages so much
> is implicit, or is encoded in non-verbal ways.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> IFF, Runtime Revolution want to carry on appealing to the
> Saturday-afternoon hobbyist crowd then 'English-like' might
> be OK.
> 
> BUT, I wonder (apart from the Las Vegas Drive-In Wedding Chapel)
> how many people who are prepared to pay £125 are Saturday-afternoon
> hobbyists.

I agree that the scripting audience once identified as "the inventive 
user" is largely mythic in the modern world; such personality types 
exist but in the post-HyperCard/post-BASIC world are more attracted to 
the many available point-and-click systems for the specific tasks they 
might be interested in.  Long gone are the days when buying a computer 
always meant learning to write your own programs.

Modern scripters probably already know a language, or two or three, and 
chances are at least one of those is JavaScript.

So why would "English-like" appeal to them?

Because the true cost of using a new language isn't the IDE price.  Far 
more expensive is the time it takes to learn the new language.  If a 
scripter can grok Rev in far less time than it would take her to pick up 
any other second language, Rev's chances of being that second language 
increase.

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World
  Revolution training and consulting: http://www.fourthworld.com
  Webzine for Rev developers: http://www.revjournal.com