[REBOL] Re: starting to be really late!?
From: robert:muench:robertmuench at: 8-Jan-2004 21:59
On Thu, 8 Jan 2004 01:23:31 -0500, Ed O'Connor <[ed--brittlestar--com]> wrote:
> To compete with Flash -- or any well-established commercial product or
> open-source language-- let's face it, it probably is too late. RT has
> limited resources and bandwidth to stake a claim against Macromedia,
> Adobe and numerous other public or privately funded companies.
Hi (Ed I'm answering to your post but it's not only meant WRT what you
have written),
this "too late" etc. discussion continually shows up every couple of
months. And, what do we do? Is Rebol the problem? I don't think so: The
applications, solutions are. What sense does a technology make if there is
no killer-app for it? IMO RT has the wrong strategy (if any at all). With
the size of RT one must use a complete different strategy. A good running
niche market can be very comfortable to live in.
To me the View 1.3 project is a first small step into the right direction.
RT uses the community! Finally! We all want RT to succeed, because we want
to keep our Rebol. How much are you going to pay for this? Nothing? Will
this work...
> It's true that the "X-Internet" label was a marketing buzzword, but REBOL
> never appeared (to my eyes anyway) to be mainstream market-driven or
> customer-focused. Good languages and technologies aren't often the
> product of markets or concensus, so it probably makes sense.
Right, it's the need others have. I want to see a discussion about things
like:
1. How can RT make money?
2. What kind of killer applications do we need?
3. What's the market for Rebol?
If we are going to answer these, it's just a matter to get it done. But
this is much more simpler than answering the questions.
> If popularity or money were truly central to the mission, consider the
> following choices:
>
> ...
>
> Looking at the above list (and I appreciate many of the items as much as
> I dislike other ones), REBOL doesn't look like a commercial,
> market-focused
> language.
No, it's not the technology, it's what we do with it. So what's the USP we
can create using all the points you mentioned for our advantage? Rebol
seems to have many unique features but we failed to use these to create
something that the markets want to have. I don't know about the success of
AltME, FTP Gadget etc. I think it's working. But it's working because
these people get some support from RT, without RT supporting their
partners, neither will be successful. IMO this is something we can accuse
RT of.
> So rather than targetting a market opportunity, Carl created a
> language-- a
> platform, really-- that embodies his principles in a personal programming
> language (wasn't that what his original manifesto said?). I've been using
> REBOL off-and-on for over 6 years, and that's longer than I can say for
> most commercial products I've worked with. I believe that there are
> marketable & revolutionary products in REBOL, or a REBOL-like language.
Which ones?
> Given the limited resources of RT, the small user-base of REBOL, and the
> _heavily_ commoditized state of programming languages, I'd love to see an
> updated vision or roadmap for REBOL (forget delivery dates, naturally).
And I would love to see RT focusing on partnerships, or if this isn't RT's
focus, to give this ability to some here. I'm trying to do so, but it's
horrible slow and takes a lot of time to work with RT. Without a sign,
results in this process, I'm keeping my fire low. Maybe one day I have an
opportunity to push RT ahead, and than I hope they will listen...
> * information retrieval & consumption
> * database interaction
> * content creation
> * games/media players
>
> and that history implies that the web has the first 2 solidly covered.
There is one big missing, not solved yet: Integration of 1 and 2 to get
value from it, so that 3 and 4 can be produced.
--
Robert M. Münch
Management & IT Freelancer
Mobile: +49 (177) 245 2802
http://www.robertmuench.de<
