Is RR too easy? RevCode

[Phil Davis]

David Brooks wrote:
>> marty wrote:
>>> Is it true that most programmers say that hypercard isn't  
>>> programming?  Do they say that about RR?  I'm running into that 
>>> issue  a little bit.
>>> Some of my students (8th grade and up) think that RR is not a 
>>> "real"  programming language.  Why?  It's too easy!  They have the 
>>> notion --  shared by a good portion of the general public -- that 
>>> programming is  incredibly difficult to do, hard to learn, and 
>>> mastered only by  geeks.  Thus, since making things (even 
>>> executables) using RR is so  easy, it must not be programming.  This 
>>> viewpoint is especially  expressed by students who have dabbled in 
>>> other languages, like java.
>>
>> Yeah, I see that a lot.  Rev is in a very difficult position with 
>> regard to its positioning:  any programming language will be too hard 
>> for most folks to find attractive, yet Transcript is too easy for 
>> some to take it seriously.
>
> I know better than to post this.  Really, I do.
>
> I left the last RunRev conference excited about the possibility of 
> teaching RunRev. The new plug-in possibilities make this just too 
> attractive to pass up. Since I don't normally teach this, it meant 
> adding to my load -- something tenured faculty just don't do unless 
> they are "on a mission."
>
> I needed to describe the course, and I've chosen to use a term 
> introduced to me at Las Vegas by Paul Looney -- RevCode. So, I'm 
> teaching RevCode.  Now, some of you might think this is Revolution, 
> and others transcript, and still others hypertalk-on-steroids. I'm 
> calling it RevCode.
>
> In order for the "case" to be made, well, I'd just have to take more 
> from Paul's justification than a good academic should. In our world of 
> sound bytes where "script" is bad and "code" is good, why not RevCode?

Preach it brother!  ;o)  I agree with Paul as well.

Phil Davis

>
> Best,
>
> Dave B. 
-- 
Phil Davis

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