On 9 Apr 2006, at 00:07, Garrett Hylltun wrote:
I'm sure you're right though, I'm sure were not being singled out
for something derogatory. It's obvious the intent, which had
nothing to do with you. Which adds to your puzzling reply on this.
Almost all those names that were listed are the people who are most
helpful. Granted, some of them participate in what I call "ego-
chatter", but even with that, that list represents a lot of good
people and I would have assumed that anyone listed would have
actually felt complimented by that.
I totally agree with this, it's one of the best lists I've ever been
involved with.
I get wound up by things that I feel are letting RunRev as a concept/
product down, however, I still use it and I want it to be better, and
there is no doubt that is has got better over the 2+ years I have
been using it. For that I say "thanks and well done". However when
you have worked in the industry as long as I have, you are bound to
see mistakes that companies have made over the years, having been
involved with projects/products that, lets say, didn't reach their
full potential and were replaced with products that were inferior in
concept, simply because of bad documentation and buggy interfaces.
Once you understand the separation of the engine and the IDE in
RunRev, you can see that the concept of the engine and all it's cool
features is sound. However, when a new user evaluates RunRev, unless
they understand xTalk, they don't immediately see this separation and
assume that IDE bugs are part and parcel of the whole thing, and in a
way they are right.
One of the major problems I face when trying to get RunRev accepted
in a traditional software development department is that of
credibility, the first thing the engineer or manager sees is the IDE.
The thing that I can sell RunRev on is the speed and flexibility of
programming, in order to do that, I usually write an application or
part of an application of medium complexity right in front in them. I
then usually leave the stack(s) with them and tell them to download
an evaluation copy of RunRev and play with it on their own machine.
This is the only real way I have found for getting that "wow" factor,
if I get the wow, I an 99% of the way there. If I don't get it, then
I'm usually out the door.
The problem with having lots of silly little bugs in the most visible
of places is that a newbie or someone that is skeptical of the claims
you have made for the system immediately have their suspicions
confirmed (or so they think). The real fact of the matter is that
even with all the silly little bugs in the IDE it's still way faster
then developing in other languages/environments. I would say
typically I lose about an hour a day due to these problems, but I
used to lose longer. I suppose I will eventually lose less time, but
that's not really the point. I have had a history of using xTalk like
languages, like SNOBOL4 and SPITBOL and know the underlying power and
the type of results you can achieve in a relatively small period of
time, so I am willing to be patient and try to work around the
problems. Once in while I "give out" about having to put up with it
and that's about it. However, I really don't think I am the typical
engineer and to them a buggy IDE to a sign of a "dodgy" product,
especially if they know that the IDE is coded in TranScript. It's as
someone else said, well if the makers of the product can't make it
work properly, what chance have we?
As for bug free pieces of software, take a look at SNOBOL4 and
SPLITBOL these languages/environments are more powerful and complex
compared to TranScript in their own way. They run on more platforms
than RunRev and they are an example of software that is 99.999999%
bug free including the documentation. The main difference is that
they don't support a GUI.
I really don't think that the problems I have mentioned are being
experienced by just myself or to my configuration. I have seen these
on different versions of RunRev running on different machines and on
different platforms.
I'm not having a personal dig at anyone, bitching for the sake or it
or trying to be awkward in any way. The only reason I bring them up
every now and then to try to get something done about it. The fact
that people are venting the way they are at the moment is a sign that
something aught to be done to resolve at least some of these issues.
All the Best
Dave
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