Why isn't Rev more popular?

[Jerry Saperstein]

Sarah:

	Since yours is the most reasonable of the flames posted so far, I'll
reply to you and consolidate a few comments on the others.

	Yes, I have been lurking here for months reading the messages on a
daily basis. Some of the problems I've encountered in my experimentation
with Revolution have indeed been answered here without a need on my part to
ask a question. Yes, I purchased Revolution with a specific purpose in mind
and, yes, you are correct in deducing that Revolution - despite advertising
claims - turned out to be ill-suited for that purpose.

	My most serious complaint about Revolution is the documentation. In
my opinion, it is deplorable and the Shafer book is a bad joke. As a matter
of preference and I think commonsense, I prefer products that are
well-documented. I simply don't have the time to waste in dealing with
products that require a prodigious amount of time to simply learn whether
it's a failure of technique or the product at the base of the problem. A
review of this list demonstrates that such time-wasting discussions are part
and parcel of the Revolution experience.

	Anyone reading this list or using Revolution knows the product has
many bugs or, as I'm sure some of the zealots here would claim,
"undocumented features."

	I've been in the technology industry since the mid-1960s and have
seen many products attract a zealous following who vociferously attacked any
critic of their love. Many of these failed products still have their
adherents years after the product failed its most critical test: acceptance
in the marketplace. Yes, I know: the zealots will immediately trot out their
arguments that Beta truly was superior to VHS;that the Commodore OS was the
best of them; that the Newton still remains unmatched. The counter-argument
is that the market says otherwise. The zealots are quick to inform you that
the marketplace is wrong, just as anyone who voted for candidate X or owns
product Z is "dumb."

	Unremarkably, those who have been the quickest to flame me appear to
be those with pecuniary interest of one sort or another in Revolution,
whether as investors, developers of Revolution based tools or vendors of
third-party products and services. Obviously such people are immediately
threatened by any criticism of the source of some part of their cash flow.

	It is noteworthy that there are so many references to applications
developed with Revolution that are inaccessible to others. I question the
wisdom of a client who would buy an application built with a tool that has a
small following, requires special knowledge to use and may not exist within
the near future. The bottom line is that apparently virtually no broadly
marketed applications have been developed with Revolution.

	If the tool is as good as its enthusiasts claim, why is that?

	As I said earlier, criticism of Revolution is not welcome on this
list. Certain people, unlike you Sarah, can't deal with any criticism
civily, as Chipp Walters, from whom I've purchased a product, has
demonstrated both in his public posting here and in a private e-mail to me.
This kind of resistance, I've found, is usually a good indicator of an
insularity which often leads to the failure of a product.

	I've asked the folks at RunTime to honor their promise of a refund.
The zealots here have convinced me that this yet another product that
started off with promise but will fail of the critical test of marketplace
acceptance.

	And with that, all the true believers may continue with their
flaming --- never being mindful of how their insubstantial ad hominem
strikes those who may wander to this list looking for justification to
purchase Revolution. Zealots never seem to understand how they hurt their
own cause.

Jerry

-----Original Message-----
From: use-revolution-bounces at lists.runrev.com
[mailto:use-revolution-bounces at lists.runrev.com] On Behalf Of Sarah Reichelt
Sent: Monday, December 05, 2005 10:06 PM
To: How to use Revolution
Subject: Re: Why isn't Rev more popular?

Wow! What an amazing set of conclusions for anyone to reach!

I've searched the mailing list archives for your name and haven't found any
previous posts from you, but I guess you must have been lurking for several
years in order to feel competent to make such sweeping statements.

>         Criticism of Revolution generally apparently is generally 
> disapproved of here. I've seen a number of valid criticisms dismissed 
> in the same way as yours have been.

I think you will find that valid criticisms ARE well received, with the
keyword being "valid". Most of us here want Rev to keep improving so it is
in our interests to locate bugs and have them logged in bugzilla so they can
be fixed.

However as you will have seen many, many times on this list, most times when
someone complains about a problem, it is in fact an error on their part. At
other times, it is a limitation of Revolution and those of us who have some
experience in the area will always try to provide a workaround. The final
case is where there is a genuine bug with no workaround, in which case a
bugzilla entry is always encouraged. If you read the responses to Herschel's
emails, you will find that this is what has happened.

>         But your point is valid: Revolution is not well suited for 
> business needs. I see a number of people who claim that have or know 
> of business applications built with Revolution, yet the references are 
> never specific and, oddly enough, none of them (save one) are 
> commercial applications that you could download an evaluation copy of. 
> The one exception I know of is the upgrade of a product called 
> "IdeaFisher." I downloaded the eval, allegedly built with Revolution, and
it immediately crashed.

You are confusing two different things here. I write many business
applications, but they are not commercially available. They are custom
programs produced for specific businesses and are not for sale. They run
24/7 and are extremely reliable. Added to that was the fact that I was able
to produce them quickly and can maintain them easily.

>         I'd love to see a referral to a commercial business oriented 
> product built with Revolution that I could download as an eval. I 
> don't mean relatively trivial apps like ButtonGadget (or whatever it's 
> name is) or a plaything like "If Monks Had Macs." I mean a real live 
> business oriented applications.

I may be unusual here, but I think of business apps as MUCH easier to write
than a beautiful entertainment piece like "If monks.." The interface
requirements for business software doesn't have to be enormously
eye-catching and the program logic is normally quite simple. Games
programming with fast moving graphics, sound, music etc seems vastly harder
to me.

>         Personally I don't think Revolution is suitable for such 
> applications and no one here has actually provided unassailable 
> evidence that Revolution has been used for such.

It may be that you have a particular business application in mind and have
decided for some reason that Rev cannot do what you need. However instead of
assuming that Rev just cannot do business apps, do you think it might be
more polite to check first and see if anyone else has encountered the
problems that you have been defeated by? Perhaps someone here can help, or
perhaps you will be able to do the Rev community a service by pointing out
some problem that needs to be fixed.

Whatever you decide, I think you will find your experiences on the list go
along much better if you show a bit more respect for the other members of
the list.

Regards,
Sarah
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