Why 10 hours for a newbie and 30 days for a "programmer"

Keith Hutchison keith.hutchison at balance-infosystems.com
Fri Sep 3 04:31:53 EDT 2004


Hi Chipp,

> Sorry to hear you say this. But of course you have your reasons.

>

Thanks for your response, we were getting fairly frustrated with make up
your mind in ten hours or forget it message. Frankly it caused confusion.

I had made the decision to buy Runtime Express because
1. It built standalone apps.
2. It works with sockets.
3. It had a syntax that was similar to HyperCard
4. Some of the people on the list were really helpful in sorting out
sockets.
5. Mostly because the graphic's people wanted it and it could work with my
existing apps.
I went to the store to buy the product but the store was down in preparation
for the upgrade.

Then Dreamcard came out.
1. It appears to be very different, as in more features than Express
2. It lost some functionality in relation to graphics or graphics
processing, don't ask me for the details I was not doing the gui evaluation,
on sockets, Express came up fine for me.
3. It lost the ability to create standalones. bummer :-(
4. It seemed to be more buggy, which I've come to expect from the first new
release of any product, REALbasic included.

It seems to me that as a developer, the entry point is now Runtime Studio
whereas previously you could start with Runtime Express, built the gui,
upgrade to Studio as we reach release point.

The graphic designers decided to go with REALbasic.
Especially after I pressed them for an answer. It literally was the make up
your mind in ten hours that lost it for them. Literally. That was the
immediate purchasing result, in our case.

I will wait for the current version to shake out it bugs and then buy a
version. I can see great potential is getting the strengths of each ide
working with other with sockets, by each IDE I mean Runtime, REALbasic, MS
Access, Delphi, Foxpro, PHP, Perl and even old Filemaker via Apple Script
and ole :-)

> My understanding is that both the Dreamcard and Revolution demos are
> exactly the same with the following exceptions:
>
> 1) Dreamcard has a 10-hour trial limit; Rev has a 30-day trial limit
> 2) Dreamcard has a 'Dreamcard' splash screen on startup, whereas Rev has
> a 'Revolution' splash screen on startup
> Other than that, they are identical.
So the same 'stack' will still work in all versions of RR?

> Now, if you were to purchase Rev,
> then you can build your own standalones (kinda like SuperCard), whereas
> if you purchase the less expensive Dreamcard, you'll need to bundle the
> player (kinda like HyperCard). But, you can always upgrade from
> Dreamcard to Revolution if you want to make a standalone of your
> Dreamcard stack.
Good to know. In what version does the links for the database engines start?

>
> There are probably many reasons for creating the new Dreamcard product.
> As a professional user, I am happy RR has decided to separate the two
> products as IMO, there are both pluses and minuses for a product like
> Dreamcard. Plus: Easy to use and get started with, recognizable 'card'
> metaphor with Apple folks. Minus: Association with Hypercard and poorly
> designed stacks can create a 'stigma' for professional developers (this
> happened with my previous company and Director a few years ago).
Happens with RB as well.

> In anycase, there are two products, but one IDE. While RealBasic is a
> fine programming environment, there are many here with RB experience who
> prefer RR. In fact, Andre Garzia is an experienced RB users and a big
> proponent of RR. I suggest you consider contacting him for some
> comparison questions.
OK. Thanks.

> Also, Geoff Canyon created a RB/RR wiki a year or
> so ago which may lend further insight (anyone know a link). If you have
> any other questions, please ask :-)
Geoff's link is old circa 2001 from memory. Each product has changed a great
deal since then.

Thanks Chipp

Keith Hutchison
Balance-Infosystems.Com

postgresql - mysql - dbf
Foxpro - Delphi - MS Access - REALbasic
http://balance-infosystems.com http://realopen.org



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