Duration of non supported applications

[David Bovill]

On 18/03/07, Bill Marriott <wjm at wjm.org> wrote:
>
> I'd wager that a first-year comp sci undergraduate with no prior knowledge
> of xTalk could be sat down in front of the typical Revolution stack and
> make
> any updates required in the time it took for the other three routes to get
> past the research/requirements phase. That's the great strength of our
> beloved platform.


 True. In my experience truth has little to do with this though :( The
problem is that human beings and institutional structures get in the way of
that. The real world logic goes to often like this:

  1) A university department without a dedicated in house coder defers to
the IT Department for advice and support.
  2) The IT department unless it has a Rev convert will recommend a
commercial solution if it does not have available software engineers (most
common), or if it does either industry standard (Java / Micorsoft) or open
source solutions.
  3) The University department is reliant on the rubber stamp from the IT
Department to gain the required project funding

The relative merits of the technology have little to do with the decision -
again the human factors are more important. Remove a student or department
from this catch-22 and they would often choose Rev - otherwise they go for
an industry standard or open source solution for "career" or "ideological"
reasons.