RunRev - The World's Easiest Programming Language | Hacker News Reader

RunRev - The World's Easiest Programming Language

runrev.com

7 pointsepall18 comments

I went there, and the first thing I didn't see was any code.

In fact, after clicking around, I failed to find anything that excited me as a programmer. The closest I got to a look at the actual product/language were a couple partial screenshots of some IDE, and the opportunity to download some tutorials in zip files (which I declined).

I did, however, see a whole lot of marketingspeak telling me how awesome it all was. Pages and pages of text and bullet points, slick graphics, and not much else.

Consider my bullshit meter pegged.

Same here - if they have the world's easiest programing language, they should consider pairing it up with a web site that is easy to grasp.

I found something that seems to indicate that they do "programming by using natural english language" or something like that. Since I consider that approach flawed (unless better AI comes along), my interest has dropped to 0.05 anyway.

There is some code in this link:

http://www.runrev.com/developers/tutorials/intermediate-hang...

It seems to be a relatively verbose language so it's really not for me. The GUI builder may be a big plus though.

I grew up around RunRev. Tuviah Snyder, the former developer of MetaCard and former CTO of RunRev is my older brother. RunRev made a deal with Scott Raney, the creator of MetaCard to basically take it over, redistribute it and make future modifications. Kevin Miller, the CEO is a pretty decent fellow. They have a very loyal following, and are trying to branch out with new marketing and significant upgrades to their products.

Personally, I found developing in RunRev very frustrating. I use to joke that I would have to start a function with please and end it with thank you. However, some find the english like syntax pleasing, I find it very frustrating. I prefer to say x = 3, instead of put 3 into x, or some variant of that.

Cool. Tuviah helped me out with problems a couple of times when I was using MC/RR. Nice guy. What's he doing now?

I tend to agree about the syntax, but I didn't have a strong HyperCard background before I discovered the products. I dislike most C/Algol syntax too, for that matter. (I struggle with syntax more than I should, in general, and I like minimal syntax. I'm happiest with S-expressions.)

RunRev is based on MetaCard, which was a cross-platform implementation of Apple's HyperCard that ran on Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris, HPUX, AIX, etc.

They took the HyperCard-ish IDE and turned it into a more familiar IDE (from the standpoint of users of more mainstream IDEs).

Yep. And MetaCard was pretty cool for its time. It actually had some Lispish qualities mixed in with the cross-platform, multimedia HyperCard stuff (which was very cool on its own.) There used to be a whitepaper online that explored that aspect of it (HyperCardy 'macros',etc.) RunRev inherited all of that with the MetaCard engine, but of course now there are more compelling offerings for most things...although it's still a pretty neat multimedia tool if you're mainly targeting the desktop or CD-ROMs for some reason. I wouldn't personally use it for web stuff or DVD-ROMs anymore, though. It is flexible. I still know people who use it for everything (including CGIs ;-) ) and I know a couple of shareware developers who still make their livings using it.

I'd probably use RunRev before I used something like RealBasic, which is basically in the same market - small, 'soup-to-nuts' shareware developers who want to create desktop apps with multimedia, internet, and database capabilities. Heck, I'd use it before I used Authorware or even some of the Python tools in that general domain (PyCard, etc.) because it was faster to develop and you put out a more polished product, without cross-platform woes. The MetaCard kernel engine is actually pretty fast, execution speed-wise. It could handily beat Perl for some stuff that you wouldn't think it would even be useful for...we scripted a performance testing tool and a utility to put database records into HTML, and it trounced Perl for both tasks. Which was impressive, considering Perl would have sucked at making cross-platform multimedia apps ;-)

I almost invested in RunRev when they were first getting started...IIRC, Mike Markkula (Apple fame) did invest in them. The founder, Kevin, is pretty cool. I ended up just becoming a customer and using it as a prototyping tool. I still have an older Pro license and a couple books about RR if anyone is interested...

Anyone remember GLPro? That was another niche app we used to make prototypes and build small multimedia apps and screensavers. It had a dBase style engine in it? We used it for a screensaver once and it ended up on an episode of Star Trek Next Generation. Or iShell? That was a later one we used that was based on another defunct Apple tool. It's still around, I think. Even with the huge range of software available today, I miss working with the little, niche multimedia and audio development tools. Those are what got me into programming.

HyperCard was really cool at the time. Pure genius.

I used it to make a full-featured offline mail reader for a BBS I used to frequent in a few hours. Anyone remember offline readers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offline_reader)? :-)

I don't miss offline readers [:-)], but I still get sad every single time I think about the demise of HyperCard. I wish someone at Apple would make it a priority to build a modern version and include it for free with all new Apple computers. If they could make a cross-platform version, or one that could also create iPhone apps it would be absolutely killer. Accessing the Core libs in a tool like that...

Some people don't know the fun they're missing...

Agree.

BTW, have you looked at squeak smalltalk? (http://www.squeak.org/)

Yeah...I actually had a fixation with it for a bit. Smalltalk in general. I bought about 30 Smalltalk books and spent loads of time messing with Squeak and Cincom Smalltalk. Seaside stuff, mostly. Unfortunately, I never really had a suitable project to use it on.

I never really made the mental connection between HyperCard and Squeak before, but they really do have quite a bit in common (quirky, low barrier to entry tools that are immense fun and very flexible.)

Thanks for the comments about Rev. A few responses:

Yes, the product has historically been something of a niche desktop development tool (perhaps of particular interest to former HyperCard developers). That said it has seen its share of success, with large scale enterprise applications, real time systems and commercial shrink wrapped software, along with the tools, utilities, shareware and educational software you would expect for this type of tool.

The big news is that we are relaunching the product this year on the Web as a mainstream, modern language with a free entry-level version for both the browser and server. Its fast, efficient, with modern features like nested arrays and OO behaviors. To support this relaunch there will be some major new site sections on getting started with literally hundreds of code examples and walk-throughs, so if you're interested please do check the site out again over the next few weeks.

Contrary to the popular myth, I would argue that English is not a verbose method of programming, it requires much, much less code than a traditional lower-level language. And, the typical programmer spends a lot more time reading code than writing it. English is highly readable, doing a much better job of reflecting the way the human mind works. Once you get into the mindset, it really is very productive. We have a really exciting launch coming up and I think we can make a positive impact on the way that certain types of software gets written.

Kevin Miller RunRev CEO

A completely closed, proprietary platform, with its own (probably incompatible with everything else) language, that advertises itself as being "easier" than other languages?

People keep trying this sort of thing, and the result is almost always slow, brain-damaged, and painful for actual programmers to use, serving mostly to allow non-programmers to accomplish just enough to shoot themselves in the foot.

So, what's the deal? Does this thing actually have any value to it? I sure can't find anything encouraging from their website.

It does have value, especially for people who have spent decades programming in HyperCard-style environments. This is not really a new "develop for idiots" type tool - it is based on a very long tradition that started with the original HyperCard, a tool that was beloved by many and used a style and approach that has largely died out. For former HyperCarders it is probably a last refuge. And it is also a good tool to help some people learn basic programming and be productive without getting turned off...it's less intimidating for some people than the alternatives. That's part of what was neat about HyperCard: average people creating cool, useful programs without even necessarily wanting to be programmers or thinking of themselves as programmers.

RunRev is proprietary, weird, and not something a younger web coder would probably want to pick up, but it does have its niche. People that are already experts in HyperCard, of course. Small desktop publishers/shareware developers who would otherwise use something like RealBasic. (It has a similar small ecosystem of third-party add-ons.) People that want a tool that lets them make desktop apps with web, database, and multimedia capabilities - without having to learn all the nitty-gritty details they might otherwise have to. Etc. You can make cross-platform apps with less headaches than many other more mainstream tools because of its runtime. It's a great prototyping tool (faster than anything else I've seen, even today) and people often ended up being able to ship their 'prototypes' because the mock-ups used native (or native-looking) controls. The execution speed was very fast the last time I used it...the core engine was written in C. As I noted in another post, it beat Perl for some text-processing tasks the last time I used it. It delivered solid cross-platform capabilities years ago - way before Java realized any of its heralded 'WORA' benefits.

In many ways, MetaCard/RunRev was a "Beating the Averages" tool for me at one point. I could create software in literally a fraction of the time it took my competitors, my software had fewer bugs, more capabilities, and it ran just as fast if not faster than their C++ monstrosities. And mine ran on Windows, Mac, and Unix - while theirs usually just ran on Windows. And they had a professional programming team, while I was a single developer with fairly limited skills. Naturally, I did everything I could to keep my tool a secret ;-) I eventually drifted away from it because I got more into web stuff, and it is not ideally suited to the web. (Or at least it wasn't at the time - and I don't see much that has truly changed in that regard, RunRev marketing aside.)

I know people who make a full-time living using it, and at least a couple guys that have made millions using it. (One of my social science professors in college - who had no prior programming experience - even started a successful software company on the side with MetaCard/RunRev. He made desktop software for creating surveys and reports in the academic community. It was a specialized tool for surveys, but the report engine put Crystal Reports to shame. He was making nearly half a million a year from it at his peak. The guys I know who made millions using it were all either professional programmers or had them on staff, though.) I haven't use it in a few years, and I definitely think that it is a mistake to try to hype it as a great language/tool for web apps - because it is not - but I do think it has value for certain users/uses.

I have a professor telling me this is what he wants a project written in. It's currently a terrible mess of JSPs, and I have half a mind to simply re-write it in Django or RoR. How do I convince him to switch from JSPs to Django/RoR instead of this RunRev thing?

It's less similar to RoR and more similar to Cappuccino or something.

More often than not, the choice of language is far less important than the choice of programmer and the comfort in the target language and the amount of pre-debugged library code that already exists. So if you think you can do better with Django/RoR, just say so.

> "It's currently a terrible mess of JSPs"

Are you really talking about Rev? Because there is no Java anything whatsoever in Rev, and revTalk, the language, is completely unlike Java or JavaSCript.

Sounds suspiciously like a new-age COBOL.

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