REALbasic (was Re: Pocket PC)

[Kevin Miller]

On 4/2/02 9:13 pm, Lorin Rivers <lrivers at realsoftware.com> wrote:

> It's not all my intent to hijack the Rev lists and turn this into a
> discussion of the relative merits of REALbasic versus any other tool.

Indeed, this is not the place.

>> There is an article on our web site that looks at the differences between
>> Rev and REALBasic - if you don't have time to read it all you can check out
>> the summary towards the end.  This shows amongst other things the number of
>> hours needed to develop a simple sample app in Rev or RB.
> 
> I don't believe the article in question is particularly current about
> REALbasic's capabilities.

The article is as current about REALBasic as it is about Revolution - both
products have been revised somewhat since it was written.  For example, on
the Revolution side, the database features - a key part of Revolution - were
not even shipping when the article was written.  No doubt there will be a
revision of the article at some point to cover the new features in both.

But the main points of the article were not about individual features, and
thus are not out of date.  The main point is that Revolution is simply a
more productive environment to work in.  You write less code, can then
execute it live immediately, and can edit and debug on all platforms.  Of
course if there is a particular feature that one or other product has that
the other doesn't and no external is available that will determine your
choice.  Otherwise, Revolution offers a lot more productivity on more
platforms.  And contrary to popular belief, Revolution is a compiled
language, which has similar performance to REALBasic.  Sure there are some
areas one or other as faster, but they are in the same ballpark.

> Please also check out the numerous
> independent reviews of REALbasic.

The fact that REALBasic has been shipping longer does mean that there are
currently more reviews of it available.  However, Revolution is also making
its way steadily into the mainstream press, and our first independent
review, by the UK's leading Mac magazine, gave it a five out of five rating
and called it the "Holy grail of cross-platform software development".  A
good start...

Kind regards,

Kevin

Kevin Miller <kevin at runrev.com> <http://www.runrev.com/>
Runtime Revolution Limited - Power to the Developer!
Tel: +44 (0) 870 747 1165.  Fax: +44 (0)1639 830 707.