RevStore

[Michael Kann]

I'm just curious. What does that program that sold for two million dollars look like?


--- On Sun, 5/2/10, Mark Swindell <mdswindell at cruzio.com> wrote:

> From: Mark Swindell <mdswindell at cruzio.com>
> Subject: Re: RevStore
> To: "How to use Revolution" <use-revolution at lists.runrev.com>
> Date: Sunday, May 2, 2010, 5:00 PM
> This is a very interesting post from
> someone who was in a position to know what was going on back
> then.  It confirms (at least for me) what I always felt
> to be the case, and why Apple ultimately let HC die on the
> vine.  Most coders of any language are not design
> experts, nor do they, of necessity,  have much going on
> in terms of artistic or aesthetic sensibilities. 
> Amateur coders maybe even less.  I recall getting shot
> down for offering this opinion about the dismal appearance
> of the majority of HC stacks on HC and SuperCard lists years
> ago.  For Apple to have its name attached to
> awful-looking, poorly-written hypercard stacks was just not
> a smart enterprise move, no matter how empowering the HC
> platform to "the rest of us."
> 
> The same can be true for Rev stacks, though clearly the
> toolkit for nice-looking apps is much nicer.  Many of
> the examples in the User section might rise to the level of
> perhaps good proof-of-concept demonstrations, but many, if
> not most, look unprofessional.  That's not a knock on
> anyone, it's a subjective observation, but one that I think
> would be confirmed by most disinterested 3rd parties. 
> (Does it then become objective?)  I'm referring here,
> by the way, to stand-alone apps for public consumption, not
> business-related utilities, which probably account for a
> great deal of the income generated off Rev programming.
> 
> I think a great problem for Rev stacks is that they are
> mostly created by one-man or woman shops.  There are
> not teams with project directors, artists, photoshop
> experts, animators, etc.  (Scott Rossi may qualify as a
> team, in this scenario, but he is unique.) This is both
> liberating and constraining, funny how that works.  If
> there were more collaboration between graphic artists,
> design experts and programmers, perhaps the output would be
> more aesthetically viable.  But now we're dealing in
> big budgets.
> 
> Of course, this doesn't even touch on the functional aspect
> of the software, which is, at the heart of things, even more
> important.  But while you may not be able to judge a
> book by its cover, you're more apt to open one up that is
> presented interestingly and professionally than one
> type-written on newsprint and held together with
> paper-clips.
> 
> Mark
> 
> > Le 2 mai 2010 à 04:13, J. Landman Gay a écrit :
> > 
> >> But with caution. I'm in favor of keeping it out
> of the spotlight until there are many more apps available,
> hundreds hopefully. A few meager offerings is not
> inspiring.
> >> 
> >> And they have to be quality offerings. As someone
> who had to review and release hundreds of HC stacks to the
> AOL libraries, I know that 99% of what came in was pure
> crap. Because HC was so accessible, everyone thought they
> were a developer. Avoidance of even the suggestion of a HIG
> was the norm. Radio buttons used as checkboxes or
> pushbuttons ("because I like how they look,") menus missing
> or out of order ("I don't need an Edit menu,") known
> commercial app icons (MacWrite) used for private stack
> purposes ("go cd images",) you name it. Virtually everything
> about these stacks was wrong. Outsiders scoffed.
> Rightfully.
> >> 
> >> And then there were the kids. I wavered between
> disgust and delight. Their stacks were invariably flip card
> animations done with crude line drawings, generally on
> topics humorous to nine year olds. "Kill Barney" was very
> popular, we had probably a dozen of those, not counting the
> rejected ones. The weapon of choice varied from guns (all
> models) to swords and knives; one stick man farted old
> Barney to death. We had to make a separate library for these
> and tag them with editorial code words like "simple line
> drawings" so that everyone else would know not to download
> them.
> >> 
> >> This lack of professionalism in HC stacks was one
> of the reasons it was rarely regarded as a serious tool, and
> it gave HC a bad name generally. The number of really good
> stacks was pretty small. Unfair as it is, the quality of the
> output often reflects on the tools used rather than the
> authors. If there is ever a Rev app store, it needs to have
> lots of files, all of which pass a certain standard of
> professionalism. That means someone has to check and verify
> every submission, which would open a whole other can of
> worms.
> >> 
> >> I confess though, in retrospect I really do wish
> I'd saved a copy of "Man Gets Beheaded By a Ceiling Fan."
> You had to be there.
> 
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