rev and languages

[Charles Silverman]

    We make a number of prototypes at our centre. Unfortunately, our 
student programmers won't touch Rev since it's not dot.syntax. As a 
consequence, I have to wait longer for some things or do them myself. 
While the students have seen Rev can do, they are wired to a different 
drummer.
    Having seen this, though, and thinking for awhile that an 
alternative dot.syntax approach made sense, I find myself in agreement 
with Kevin's recent post about the need to have xTalk (transcript)  be 
the scripting language for Rev.
    I think Rev's power is in letting people who aren't necessarily 
engineering types do things that are labor-instensive or difficult to 
do in other environments for anybody. Focusing on building support for 
other language approaches might weaken the revolution (sorry, couldn't 
resist) right now.
    I'd much rather see Rev engineering time go toward fully exploiting 
and integrating Quicktime,(Trevor DeVore's external has been great-- 
many thanks for doing this!). Fully manipulating wired sprites from 
within Rev and not having to rely on LiveStage could give Rev a very 
powerful edge. If my understanding is correct, Apple intended HyperCard 
3.0 to make it easy to do lots of interactive quicktime management, 
including sprite manipulation.

-Charles
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Charles Silverman
Researcher
Centre for Learning Technologies
Ryerson University
Toronto, Ontario
CANADA
web: www.ryerson.ca/clt