Andy's comments and positioning...

[Richard Gaskin]

Dan Shafer wrote:

> I could give a good rodent's behind about professional developers
> as a market because of two perceptions gained from three decades
> living in their world: (1) They resist, as a group, changing
> languages and tools once they've learned one and invested gobs
> of time in building up libraries, learning where the bodybugs are
> buried, and developed a rep;

That's not limited to professional developers, it's just human nature. Talk
to Illustrator and Freehand users (or Quark and InDesign users, or
Dreamweaver and GoLive users, Mac and Win users, Ford and Chevy drivers,
etc.) to see that dynamic played out in different fields.

> (2) It's difficult or impossible to form real support communities
> around them because of the need for them to treat lots of stuff
> as proprietary and their need to stay focused on their tasks as
> opposed to helping some other poor soul.

Actually, the majority of free code, advice, and other openly shared
resources in the Rev community seems to be coming from people who earn their
living with scripting.

...
> Back in the days I was touting Smalltalk as the Language of the Gods,
> you couldn't get a serious developer to look at it. A tiny, tiny
> minority did. Of those who did, almost all of them would eventually
> agree it was superior to their current toolset. And they'd still refuse
> to change. "I'm six months behind on my C++ project," they'd say. "I'd
> love to be able to take the time now to switch and master Smalltalk but
> I can't afford the cut in pay."

Professional *programmers* are a subset of professional developers.  By far
the majority of pro developers are scripters, using JavaScript, Perl, etc.
for Web development.

I would agree with the observation that those making their living with C++
are less likely to change, but that's true of any successful person -- if
they make good money doing one thing why do something else?

Far more likely to change are VB developers.  Extra bonus points that
they're currently really unhappy with .Net and its 48MB install.

And even more likely to change are the many professional *scripters* for
whom adopting Rev wuld not be a change at all, but a compliment to the
professional Web development services they already offer.

Professional scripters outnumber professional low-level programmers by at
least two orders of magnitude. They are already familiar with the strengths
of scripting, and are comfortable using multiple languages.

Most professional scripters have everything they need except a
cost-effective GUI application development system, esp. one that deploys on
as many systems as their Web apps.  By adding Rev to their mix suddenly all
sorts of opportunities open up for them, from custom tools for business
managers to VPN UIs to CD-ROM sales tools to commercial products that would
be difficult or impossible to do well on the Web.

 
None of this is to discount the relevance of the education market, which may
indeed be well worth creating a very focused product for.  Heck, nothing's
stopped a good many educators froom using Rev now.

But I would suggest that the professional-quality scripting tool we have
today is a powerful thing well worthy of the MacEddy it just won, and that
the professional scripters who've carried the technology and the community
forward these many years are worth at least a few rodent behinds.

-- 
 Richard Gaskin 
 Fourth World Media Corporation
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