Re: [MacPerl] AEs in realbasic

[Chilton Webb <chilton@tca.net>]

>> Have you looked at FaceSpan from Digital Technology
>> (www.facespan.com)? It's a GUI development tool in which objects are
>> backed up by applescript routines.
>
>Yes.  FaceSpan yields slower final products, isn't threaded, doesn't have a
>debugger, doesn't use an object-oriented language, can't talk to ODBC
>datasources, can't cross-compile with Windows, and doesn't have a cool cool
>cool sprite engine.  To the best of my knowledge, FaceSpan also isn't
>appearance-savvy, and doesn't support double-byte script systems.  RealBasic
>does all of the above; its O'Reilly book is in editing.  RB costs about as
>much as FaceSpan, a little more for the full price, a little less at the
>education rate.
You're right about the speed. FS is slow, esp on pre-8.5 Macs. The 
threading isn't an issue for most MacOS applications, nor the lack of a 
true debugger, although AppleScript does do a decent job of reporting 
errors before use. FaceSpan is appearance-savvy, last I checked, and the 
nature of the AppleScript language is categorized as object-oriented.
>
>I'd honestly be willing to overlook pretty much all of the above, except I
>can't stand applescript's syntax, and the idea of writing even a moderately
>complicated application with it makes me break out in a cold sweat.  I'm 
>not a
>huge fan of RealBasic syntax either, but it's substantially clearer and more
>consistent than AS, and there's a lot more documentation available than
>there's ever been in the applescript world.
>
>Clearly, if you're already comfortable and skilled with applescript, facespan
>makes a good proposition, but RB brings a lot more to the table.
>
>  -nat
>
You might also want to check out SuperCard by IncWell. It's language 
(based on xTalk) is much easier to understand than RealBasic's, and has 
an incredible AppleEvent/AppleScript engine. Also, it's had 10 years to 
mature, where RB is still in many respects, the new 'kid' on the block. 

I suspect that as time passes, RB will mature. The environment around it 
and the developers working on it remind me of the old days of SuperCard 
when it was a product of Silicon Beach software.

Both products warrant a close look by any serious MacOS software 
developer. Currently, SuperCard has far superior documentation, there are 
three books on it out of print, and two new ones in the process of being 
printed, as well as a video tutorial and a ton of online tutorials in the 
works. Another cool feature of the SuperCard language is the ability to 
customize the project editor, or roll your own, as it's written in 
SuperCard, too. RB lacks any such customization, so power users are 
restricted by the same interface that makes it easy to use for beginners. 

Other reasons you might want to look at SC include the ability to convert 
your apps to web-based apps that run with the cross-platform SuperCard 
Browser Plug-in, and integrated speech recognition. Ever since I was 
first able to say "new button" and watch SC create a new button, I've 
been hooked.

I don't want to come across as saying that I think SC is better than RB 
for everything, it isn't. I have a ton of software that I use here at my 
lab that was written in RB, and I'm writing two magazine articles on RB 
for Mac mags this week. Plus, one of my RB projects rolls in a few grand 
a month (how I did this will be the topic of one of these articles).

However, SuperCard was my authoring environent of choice for the last 
four commercial ports I did, and I'm using it for 10 of 12 commercial 
products I'm working on this month. Also, the beta version (and future 
versions) of PerlSlinger will be soon released as open source, and it was 
written in SuperCard. One could say I'm high on Mac::Glue today.

One of my commercial products will be released in August on MacOS, 
WinNT/98, and Unix via MetaCard. MC builds faster products (an order of 
magnitude, it seems at times) than RB or SC, but their Mac interface 
depresses me. And it will probably depress anyone who's used a Mac 
before. It's essentially a port of their Unix version. But since it 
relies on an entirely custom engine, and makes very few MacOS toolbox 
calls, it's very very very fast.

facespan.com -- facespan
incwell.com -- supercard
metacard.com -- metacard
realbasic.com -- realbasic

-- my .18752 cents

-Chilton

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