mission critical apps; was Re: cross platform ide

[Chipp Walters]

Alex,

My first mission critical app was written in SuperCard! It was a Jumbotron
display controller for the NBA called "JIVES" and it controlled the big
screen TV's for NBA teams. As many advertisers use the Jumbotron, $$$ were
at stake if it didn't work properly. In over 5 years of use, to my
knowledge, it only malfunctioned 1 time during a game (actually pre-game and
it was due to a bug I accidently left in on a new build).

Talking with my C programmer partner Chris, he mentioned that the same
messaging path problems are found in Delphi and VB as well with variants of
C including C#. So, how does MS and Borland sell their products into mission
critical enterprise environments?

If you can believe it, the thing ran on a Mac -- and still didn't crash.

He also stated the big problem with message paths is when the message chain
gets full and then things get lost. He suggested that RR programs can be
written to be 'procedural-like' (see mc.cgi's for instance) which would
cut-down on the possibilities of message chain problems.

> > But, salesmen come in all forms. I would suggest a different tact: Use
> > RR to
> > prototype the mission critical tool.
>
> Don't appeal to programmer productivity. I already know runrev is the
> most productive tool for me. That's not the issue. I asked: "How are
> you going to sell xtalks in a corporate environment where reliability
> and correctness is _more important than programmer productivity_ ?"

You missed the point...it's *not about productivity*, but rather the
prototyping value of RunRev, which it is not necessary to be mission
critical safe. The point is use RR to PROTOTYPE. You asked how to sell
xTalks in corporate environments. Sell it as a PROTOTYPE tool.

> > 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.
>
> Great! Are they mission critical? (my definition = $, property or
> safety is at stake)

Well, the Homeland Security App has the safety of data at stake. Hemingway
has the safety of an individuals website at stake -- along with the possible
loss of revenue from a website being down/hacked. The last product is a
realestate web application, with similar concerns.

best,

Chipp