Native OS Support [was Re: printRotated on Mac?]

[Frank Leahy]

On Sep 15, 2004, at 5:00 PM, use-revolution-request at lists.runrev.com 
wrote:

> From: jbv <jbv.silences at Club-Internet.fr>
> Subject: Re: Native OS Support [was Re: printRotated on Mac?]
> To: How to use Revolution <use-revolution at lists.runrev.com>
> Message-ID: <414863F7.E1316F04 at Club-Internet.fr>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854";
> 	x-mac-creator="4D4F5353"
>
>>
>>
>> I know it's a little off-topic, but every time I see a request like
>> this I am reminded of how many feature requests would be unnecessary 
>> if
>> RunRev supported a way to call the native OS toolboxes.
>>
>> I can even imagine a nice little business building cross-platform
>> functions to extend RunRev.
>
> Please correct me if I'm wrong, but this can be done
> via externals...

(As background, I've written a dozen externals for HyperCard)

There are lots of negatives to writing externals, and some big benefits 
to calling native from within Transcript.

Negatives:
      1) you have to code for each platform individually
      2) you need a development platform for each platform --- 
CodeWarrior or XCode on Mac OS X, MSDev on MS, whatever on Linux
      3) debugging and testing is difficult
      4) you need to release a separate external for each platform
      5) documentation for writing externals is sketchy (though 
supposedly about to get better)
      6) there are a dearth of externals currently available as compared 
the the number that were available for HyperCard, and the number that 
are available for RealBasic -- this may or may not mean something, but 
it's certainly a negative when comparing RunRev to RealBasic.

Benefits:
      1) much easier development, can be done within the RunRev IDE
      2) much simpler debugging and testing, again all within the RunRev 
IDE
      3) release as a single stack with code for all platforms (no 
externals need to be released or installed)
      4) to use all you have to do is "start using" the stack

-- Frank