Marc (aliacta.com) schreef: > A few observations after reading the whole discussion so far: > > 2. If I develop everything myself it'll cost me a lot of time. > And the cost of the plugin as compared to the time I'd spend, means it could be money well spent buying the plugin. I always look at the price first, then compare to the amount of hours I think I need to reach the same place if I'd have to program it myself. At 50$/hour a 500$ plugin should be about 10 hours of my time. If I can do it in 5, I'm better off doing it myself. Of course this is thinking as a professional programmer. 500$ for a hobby project is a lot of money. > 3. But if I buy the plugin it'll be done 'instantly'. > But I need to invest some time to learn how to use the plugin ;-P > 4. However if the plugin is broken in the future it'll cost me a lot > of time to do everything myself, but *I've got nothing to loose* > since if I don't use the plugin I'll loose that precious time right > away! > Exactly > Frankly, when you put everything in perspective it's rather absurd > not to use third party help when it will provide you a better return > on investment straight away. It gets you jump started. If you'd > still want to distrust the plugin and code everything yourself you > could still do so by the next release of your application, or the one > thereafter... In the mean time you see whether your concept is > viable and whether you sell enough copies to even put some more > effort into it or not! > > I try to always wrap as much functionality in my own functions as possible. So if I need certain functionality, I call my own functions everywhere, and they in turn call the plugin. This means that I call my own functions everywhere in my code, and if I ever need to swap methods/plugins, I only need to change my functions to call the new method or plugin. I never need to change any code other than the code in the functions that call the plugin. (Well, in theory, it isn't always possible to encapsule everything) > As a final thought, I really would appreciate as well if RS had a > clear and sustained policy of support for third parties. Now they > sometimes give the impression to work against them. > > Marc > That wouldn't be bad at all. If people make plugins that enhance RB, it can only increase the sales for RS themselves, since some people might be looking for a platform that provides the functionality that the plugin offers, and by extension REALbasic would be offering this functionality through the plugin.. After all, we cannot expect them to implement every function anyone could ever want. Currently I have about 30 website that I go to when I'm looking for some functionality I need. If RS supported the third parties better, I could just look on RS's website to see if anyone offered the functionality I need. Also people that are considering using REALbasic would be seeing all the possibilities on RS's website, and this would increase the chance of sales both for RS and the third party. > PS: my take on features needed for the next ListBox, as discussed > several years ago on the NUG, is still: keep the current ListBox, > add a new control that is a minimalist frame on which anybody can > build what he wants. Something that simply provides flexible row > heights and column widths, horizontal and vertical scrolling, styled > cell contents, possibly with the ability to embed any control in a cell. > How it behaves, e.g. how it scrolls or populates itself, would be for > each one of us to implement. > ______________________________________________ > I fully Agree. As a programmer I don't need every possible control or functionality. What I do need is the ability to make the needed control or functionality. After all, as I said, we can't expect RS to program everything anyone could ever need. Also if RS made all functionality themselves, it would kill the third party market, and I don't think that is what we want. A healthy third party market is a sign of a professional product. It is also possible for multiple third parties to compete with each other in certain functionality fields, and this competition between third parties tends to lead to product improvements that wouldn't happen without the competition. So if RS programmed everything themselves, and that was the only functionality available, you'd have to be happy with what they offered, and thanks to lack of competition there would not be that much incentive for them to improve the functionality you found lacking. (Read: if it's good enough for 90% of the people, it's good enough for you).
My conclusion : It is much better that RS stick to the core of their business, and keeps on improving REALbasic itself (I'm personally impressed with the progress they are making, even though some things could be better), and that third parties provide the extra functionality that people might need. Dirk Cleenwerck Chief Programmer Useitgroup NV _______________________________________________ Unsubscribe or switch delivery mode: <http://www.realsoftware.com/support/listmanager/> Search the archives: <http://support.realsoftware.com/listarchives/lists.html>
