Jolt Award

[Kay C Lan]

Hi Bob,

Everything you say if perfectly valid, and believe me, I'm only now
starting to comprehend how incomprehensible the task is that RunRev have
chosen;-) to make a multi-platform RAD. I really feel for the company when,
after enormous amounts of manpower have transformed HyperCard into
something, that as far as I'm concerned, pulls rabbits out of hats, but
none of this black magic is mentioned, the press focus on the UI that is
clunky so all LC is good for is prototyping.

IMO I think the VERY opinionated views of this thread about what a UI
should be go along way in explaining why Apple products have been so
successful. They are NEVER top spec, in some cases arguable low spec, but
they are priced over top spec and this seems to be justifiable by the
commonly agreed characteristic that the User Interface/Experience is so:
seamless, fluid, intuitive, smooth, gorgeous, natural, effortless - and at
least a dozen other superlatives that the press boys can come up with.

UI is extremely important to us, even emotional, Richmond wants to go back
to Claris '97 it made such a connection with him ;-)

Fact is, today, Claris '97 isn't going to cut it, the youth of today, in 20
years will be lamenting whatever happened to the good ole Angry Birds '11
UI. Today's UI is what today's UI is and apart from the few Scott Rossi's
out there who can do a better job, for us mere mortals it would be nice to
able to use today's UI rather than last decade's UI.

A 15 yr old at the school my wife works at, has two games in the iApp
Store. He's no whizz kid, it would appear that the only people that have
bought his game are his mates and probably every family member, BUT, I
guess he's been programming for less than 2 years and yet everything UI is
native - looks native, feels native. I've been scripting since HC came out,
and yet I can't get native.

Sure, I could go Xcode, and I have dipped my toes in a couple of times,
only to find the temperature frigid - it would also reinforce the sentiment
that LC is for prototyping. RunRev have won me over, they have no worries
there, I'll keep coming back, xTalk and scripting gels with the way my
brain function - or doesn't function more to the point. I do appreciate all
the magic they do, even if I only comprehend a scratch on the surface of
the many hurdles they face. It's been discussed many times what made HC so
popular, and maybe it was the fact that it was just another Apple paradigm
- it wasn't top spec, you could get to half of the Mac's processes, but
it's UI was 100% Mac, so what you could do with it, it looked right, felt
right and you connected with it.

My original comment stands, I'd really like to see RunRev cross the "native
widget and resource file" hurdle.