This is a very interesting post from someone who was in a position to know what
was going on back then. It confirms (at least for me) what I always felt to be
the case, and why Apple ultimately let HC die on the vine. Most coders of any
language are not design experts, nor do they, of necessity, have much going on
in terms of artistic or aesthetic sensibilities. Amateur coders maybe even
less. I recall getting shot down for offering this opinion about the dismal
appearance of the majority of HC stacks on HC and SuperCard lists years ago.
For Apple to have its name attached to awful-looking, poorly-written hypercard
stacks was just not a smart enterprise move, no matter how empowering the HC
platform to "the rest of us."
The same can be true for Rev stacks, though clearly the toolkit for
nice-looking apps is much nicer. Many of the examples in the User section
might rise to the level of perhaps good proof-of-concept demonstrations, but
many, if not most, look unprofessional. That's not a knock on anyone, it's a
subjective observation, but one that I think would be confirmed by most
disinterested 3rd parties. (Does it then become objective?) I'm referring
here, by the way, to stand-alone apps for public consumption, not
business-related utilities, which probably account for a great deal of the
income generated off Rev programming.
I think a great problem for Rev stacks is that they are mostly created by
one-man or woman shops. There are not teams with project directors, artists,
photoshop experts, animators, etc. (Scott Rossi may qualify as a team, in this
scenario, but he is unique.) This is both liberating and constraining, funny
how that works. If there were more collaboration between graphic artists,
design experts and programmers, perhaps the output would be more aesthetically
viable. But now we're dealing in big budgets.
Of course, this doesn't even touch on the functional aspect of the software,
which is, at the heart of things, even more important. But while you may not
be able to judge a book by its cover, you're more apt to open one up that is
presented interestingly and professionally than one type-written on newsprint
and held together with paper-clips.
Mark
> Le 2 mai 2010 à 04:13, J. Landman Gay a écrit :
>
>> But with caution. I'm in favor of keeping it out of the spotlight until
>> there are many more apps available, hundreds hopefully. A few meager
>> offerings is not inspiring.
>>
>> And they have to be quality offerings. As someone who had to review and
>> release hundreds of HC stacks to the AOL libraries, I know that 99% of what
>> came in was pure crap. Because HC was so accessible, everyone thought they
>> were a developer. Avoidance of even the suggestion of a HIG was the norm.
>> Radio buttons used as checkboxes or pushbuttons ("because I like how they
>> look,") menus missing or out of order ("I don't need an Edit menu,") known
>> commercial app icons (MacWrite) used for private stack purposes ("go cd
>> images",) you name it. Virtually everything about these stacks was wrong.
>> Outsiders scoffed. Rightfully.
>>
>> And then there were the kids. I wavered between disgust and delight. Their
>> stacks were invariably flip card animations done with crude line drawings,
>> generally on topics humorous to nine year olds. "Kill Barney" was very
>> popular, we had probably a dozen of those, not counting the rejected ones.
>> The weapon of choice varied from guns (all models) to swords and knives; one
>> stick man farted old Barney to death. We had to make a separate library for
>> these and tag them with editorial code words like "simple line drawings" so
>> that everyone else would know not to download them.
>>
>> This lack of professionalism in HC stacks was one of the reasons it was
>> rarely regarded as a serious tool, and it gave HC a bad name generally. The
>> number of really good stacks was pretty small. Unfair as it is, the quality
>> of the output often reflects on the tools used rather than the authors. If
>> there is ever a Rev app store, it needs to have lots of files, all of which
>> pass a certain standard of professionalism. That means someone has to check
>> and verify every submission, which would open a whole other can of worms.
>>
>> I confess though, in retrospect I really do wish I'd saved a copy of "Man
>> Gets Beheaded By a Ceiling Fan." You had to be there.
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