The RB Forums thread has been awesome! I know I’ve enjoyed seeing what everyone has done with REALbasic. Seeing the awesome user interfaces and innovative things that people have done with REALbasic is a very cool. It’s also obvious that people want to show their work off and get feedback based on the length of the thread.
The Association of REALbasic Professionals (ARBP) decided it was a neat idea too and we smacked ourselves on the forehead when we thought about it. I mean, really, what should a developers association be doing for the product? Show what developers are doing with that product of course!
So, today, we opened up the Made With REALbasic section on the ARBP members-only website. Anyone can view the product listing but to add, rate, or comment (I think it is cool that a thread is available for EACH product myself) you have to be a registered member (registration is free by the way). We have some extra fields to describe anything special development-wise what went into the product as well as pricing, what platforms it supports and so on.
Needless to say, we’re pretty pumped about this feature of the ARBP site. I think it fits in well with our mission of educating people on what REALbasic can do and educating users on what is possible.
ARBP is ultimately run by REALbasic users. So if you have ideas on things that ARBP should be doing, let us know!
Aaron talks about the three types of customers: Mort, Elvis, and Einstein’s. I think there’s some illusions as to who ARBP represents and people think ARBP only has the Elvis and Einstein’s interests at heart. This is untrue.
In my opinion, we represent those that use REALbasic for the following:
a) For a living, meaning their employer has them use REALbasic for their job
b) To develop commercial, shareware or any type of public application either for themselves or for their employer
In other words, we represent nearly everyone! We don’t exclude the hobbyists by any stretch of the imagination, but the average hobbyist probably isn’t as concerned about the same things as the pro users (there will always be exceptions to this rule obviously so don’t email complaining!).
REALbasic is an awesome tool. It’s very powerful and can do a lot of things. It’s not without some shortcomings, however. For years, I’ve heard the same stories from RB developers until I finally got sick of them (the stories not the developers). They love RB, but…. It’s the ‘but’ that ARBP is trying to help eliminate and reduce.
Some of our work is education. Some of our work is perception. Some it is an apparent lack of focus from RS in areas that would make a bulk of the pro users happy. Some of it is a lack of communication from RS. So we question, we prod, we ask uncomfortable questions and in the long run we hope that REALbasic gets better and more people use it. Simple, right?
If you have not had the opportunity to check out ARBP, please do so at www.arbp.org and the members-only site at www.arbpmembers.org. If you are thinking about buying RB tools, utilities or source code, the ARBP vendors have significant discounts available for subscribers that can easily pay for a subscription. Registered users have access to the source code repository where you can find some awesome tutorials and articles and to the ARBP forums where pro users can ask and answer questions that’s not related to source code.
Happy Coding!