mission critical apps; was Re: cross platform ide

[Chipp Walters]

Alex,

You bring up many excellent points...but I really thing you miss some big
ones.

1) Your inability to answer a question about messaging does not make RR
unfit for work in the Enterprise. Not that I'm saying you aren't smart about
these things, I know just the opposite is true, just looking at some of the
projects you've created in Rev points out your obvious skills:-)

But, salesmen come in all forms. I would suggest a different tact: Use RR to
prototype the mission critical tool. Then when your manager sees how fast
you were able to build the prototype, tell him you can have it working in
less time (less $$$) than redoing everything in C. Even if he says no, you
still have the advantage of a prototype to help design the final app.

2) There are many factors which go into tool selection. Unfortunately for
RR, there are many which would seem to disqualify it before even starting.
You mention one -- the message path. What about even more basic questions
like "Who is RR?" and "How long have they been in business?" Basing a large
'mission critical' app on a company the size of RR is probably a very
difficult proposition in the first place. Also, RR doesn't really have a
great 'team-centered' IDE to work with. IOW, using RR to develop large scale
apps with teams of developers is difficult.

All of that being said, I am currently working on 3 Enterprise class RR
applications. I did them all by prototyping and convincing the management
they can save LOTS of $$$ by letting us develop in RR vs VB or C. So far,
it's worked.

> 2) Is a tool that's really good for games and multimedia also a good
> tool for making ultra-reliable business applications? There is an
> saying something like: When all you have is a hammer, everything looks
> like a nail. Can the 'All talking All singing All dancing' Runrev
> really be the 1 true tool that we want it to be?

Hmmm. It appears most of the best products built with MC and RR are neither
games nor multimedia. In fact, if I were to build either games or
multimedia, I would probably develop them in either Flash or Director. I
believe RR strength is as a Rapid Application Development tool (RAD). I know
I use it solely for application development, and many others on this list do
too. So, IMO, thinking of it a multimedia/game tool is most limiting.

One other side note: Years and years ago, before the internet, our standards
of what an 'ultra-reliable' application were IMO much higher than they are
today. In fact, nowadays, with MS releasing security fix after security fix
each week, the effect has 'lowered the bar' for developers everywhere. If
there's a compromise or bug in software, developers point at MS and say
"hey, if the most profitable and largest software company in the world can't
get it right, then ..." Not to make excuses, but it does set expectations.

best,

Chipp