BKeeney Briefs

Issue 10.1 of Real Studio Developer came out while I was in Germany last week.  In my regular BKeeney Briefs column I penned an article titled “Telling The Story of An Application – Getting your client to communicate with you”.

I also do an interview with Marc Zeedar about…wait for it…me!  Trust me, you’ll find out more information about me than you ever really wanted.  Imagine my surprise when I went the conference in Germany when people said, “Huh.  The picture in the magazine is a few years old, right?”  Um…thanks?

Also in this issue:  JC Cruz has an article on getting started with the Report Editor in Real Studio.  Marc Zeedar walks us how he used Real Studio to make an app for his iPad.  Paul Lefebvre’s two columns cover Large Database Objects – working with pictures in databases, and Easy Web Services – create a web API.

Check it out.  If nothing else you can use the picture to scare away mice and small children.

 

Like many developers I’m not exactly the most outgoing person on the planet.  I guess that would make me a classic introvert.  However, I always get jazzed up when meeting new people at conferences.  It’s always fun and exciting to hear their story.

This week I’m in Frankfurt Germany for the Real Studio Database Days training sessions sponsored by MonkeyBread Software.  Tonight was a get together for drinks and dinner at the Hotel Amadeus before training starts tomorrow bright and early.

The connections you make in these conferences are invaluable.  Already, several people have identified areas that they are having particular problems with in Real Studio.  Maybe I’ll be able to help or, maybe, I’ll be able to reproduce their problem into a small project that I can send to Real Software.  I also have no doubt that I will learn much more than I help others.

It’s been a long day.  More after tomorrow.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted something.  There’s a reason for that.  First, business is good and all of our developers are busy and will be busy for the winter.  That’s an awesome thing!

My Nigeria trip at the end of September really put some work on hold until I got back.  Thankfully I have some really cool (and patient) clients that are flexible in their schedule and were accommodating to the change in schedule due to travel and as a couple of emergency projects showed up.

Then we sold our house that had been on the market since June.  Then we bought a house (24 hours later).  And then moved out (and in to the new house) less than 2 and a half weeks later.  Even our Real Estate agent (who does 120 homes a year) says that this sequence is fast, fast, fast!  The one positive note is that the movers complimented us by saying we were “really organized” and I’d say so as in less than 48 hours we are about 85% unpacked.

Prospective clients keep showing up and asking for quotes.  There are a LOT of people asking for quotes from us to take their VB6 applications and rewrite them into Real Studio.  Most are scared away by the price (because there are no conversion tools so it’s really a rewrite) but a few have been serious enough to continue the conversation.

It really is a good time to be a Real Studio developer.  Every developer I know is busy and that’s a really good thing.  If you are not part of the Real Software Developer Referral Program you should be as it’s a great way to get leads.  One project and it pays for itself.

I barely have things unpacked from the house move and I’m off to the Real Studio Database Days training in Frankfurt, Germany where I’ll do a short presentation on our ActiveRecord implementation.  I must be crazy.

Steve Jobs changed my life – literally and figuratively.  It’s been a long journey even though I feel like it’s just getting started.

My first exposure to an Apple computer was my friend Mike.  His parents owned a machining company and were using an Apple II for a bunch of business things.  We used it for games – and my, oh my, what fun those games were.  Of course they’re pitiful compared to todays games but they were outstanding for their time.

Because I couldn’t live and his parents business (though I mightily tried) I found other sources.  Even though I was in high school, I got permission to use the one (!) Apple II at the elementary school (my school was small – it was all one building) where I did my first programming by creating a Dungeons and Dragons character creator using Apple BASIC.

Then I went to college where I was surrounded by DOS machines.  It was an engineering school and these things were everywhere.  When I got drafted to publish a parents newsletter for my fraternity I discovered the two little dinky Macintosh Plus computers in the corner of the computer lab, a LaserWriter printer, and a piece of software called PageMaker.  My love affair with the Macintosh began.

And it continued to grow.  I learned PageMaker, FreeHand, and Persuasion like the back of my hand.  I worked for a company called MacTemps and made good money using those skills and worked my way through college.  While my engineering contemporaries were doing their reports and graphs by hand I was turning them in on laser printed paper.  What took them hours to prepare took me one.

I remember vividly my first Mac Plus and my first Mac SE.  I was passionate about those Mac’s.  I have no doubt my fraternity brothers were bored of me extolling the virtues of using a Mac.  Well, I was right, wasn’t I?

I went to a Mac users group conference in Ann Arbor, Michigan (circa 1988) where I saw my first 1 GB hard drive the size of a suitcase.  We were all wondering how we’d fill up a hard drive that size.  This is also the same conference where I shook Bill Gates’ hand just before he walked on stage to deliver the keynote speech (at a Mac conference remember).  Microsoft wasn’t always the anti-Apple company – MS Word and Excel were pretty slick back in those days.

Since college I’ve owned many Mac’s.  A Mac II LC (the pizza box Mac), probably something from the Performa line, a G3, a G4, a G5, several of the all-in-one iMac’s, a PowerBook laptop, a G3 laptop, a MacBook Pro, and a MacBook Air.  These machines helped convert me from an engineer to a programmer.

In my early consulting days I had a crappy Dell in the corner simply so I could use Visual Basic and Access.  Now days I simply fire up VMWare or Parallels (depending upon computer) and use Vista, Win7, XP or any number of Linux distro’s.

I resisted the iPod, at first, thinking it was a crappy name and Apple wasn’t an electronics company.  But when the iTunes music store showed up it changed my mind and how I bought music.  I now buy more music without ever leaving home.

I had resisted using a cell phone for years but finally gave in when I got married.  My cousin gave me an old HandSpring Palm phone which lasted for years.  When the iPhone came out I willingly jumped in because I figured it had to be better than the Handspring phone.  My oh my, was it ever.  I think we’ve owned every generation of phone since and I don’t leave the house without checking to see if I have keys, wallet and iPhone.

Like the iPod before it, the iPhone changed the way I purchased software.  No longer did I need to go to a store to browse software boxes.  Now, I go to an app, browse the selections, read reviews and then purchase and download it practically instantaneously.  What a game changer.

When the iPad came out there was never any question of getting it.  We were already big iPhone users and to start with several hundred apps without buying anything?  It was a no brainer.  No reason not to get it.  It’s now used daily.  It goes with us on trips (of any type) and like the iPod before it, it’s changed the way I consume books.  I now purchase books without ever going to a brick and mortar store and I read more than I did before.

So this is a big thank you to the man I consider to be the biggest tech visionary of my time.  He started from humble beginnings and created, several times, new markets where others followed.

I could certainly argue that Microsoft would not be the company it is today without the Macintosh influencing how it did Windows.  The music industry resisted online sales until Apple proved they could make money on it.  The entire cell phone industry is undergoing a complete transformation now because of the iPhone.  The tablet market is undergoing a radical shift because of the iPad.

And that’s just Apple.  Steve bought a little company called Pixar that did computer animation.  It had a string of blockbuster movies that weren’t just about the animation it was about telling the story.  Many imitators have followed.

Even before that, when he got pushed out of Apple, he never stopped trying to think outside the box.  He helped found NEXT computer.  It was an awesome computer for it’s time but too expensive and it never took off.  But it was a NEXT Computer that was the first web server.  And it was the NEXT operating system that Apple used to reinvent itself after Steve came back.

Steve Jobs unique.  He was an a**hole to some and inspired intense loyalty to others.  His leadership style was unique and he was a consummate salesman showing us not what we asked for but what we were really looking for.

He died too young.  Or, he died after accomplishing much more than most.  He did ‘insanely great things.’  And we will miss him.

The Real Studio community is a pretty tight-knit one.  Once you’ve been using Real Studio for a while the same names keep popping up over and over again.  So when one of us has a problem (usually in code) many people come to rescue.

We have one long-time member of the community that’s in need of something different, however.  Christian Miller, the owner of Pariahware, has a particularly dire need.  His wife, Joanne, has been in the hospital and in long term nursing care after a series of dramatic health incidents.

It started back in February with several strokes.  In April she had so many they couldn’t track them.  Doctors thought she would not survive and in May the family was preparing for a funeral.  She was unconscious for months.  Through constant faith, and prayer, she woke up from the coma and is slowly recovering.

I’m not much for miracles, but Joanne’s story of recovery remarkable.  She still has a long struggle in front of her.  You can read more about Christian and Joanne at http://pariahware.com/blog/?p=414.

To get her home, they’ll need a van that is wheel chair capable.  Crippling medical costs have made this very difficult so they are asking for our help in donations to get a Van for Joanne.  I urge you to dig deep and donate what you can spare (and maybe a little more).

I would like to think that the RB community can help one of their own.  We’re a small and vibrant community.  If you can’t donate any cash to the project, I’m sure that they will appreciate your prayers and thoughts for a steady and permanent recovery.  You can follow the Donate button below to help out.

(Forgive the rambling on this one as there are many thoughts running through my mind!  It’s hard to put it all in to words because every time I think of one thing it reminds me of another!)

It’s been an interesting 10 days.  If you follow the blog at all you know I was contracted to train a group of developers on Real Studio.  The location?  Nigeria.

Most of the people following me thought it was a joke.  People really go to Nigeria?  On purpose?  The answer is yes!

I’ll start by saying that my week in Nigeria exceeded all of my expectations.  I went in with very low expectations so it’s nice to be pleasantly surprised.

Like many of my fellow Americans my view of Africa is skewed.  As a child of the 70′s my first glimpse of Africa was the old TV show Tarzan.  I don’t watch much modern television but the images of African on the Discovery Channel and the news networks still left me with the mindset of African being filled with mud buildings with thatch huts, dirt streets, lots of poor people, and crime everywhere.  Sally Struthers infomercials also cast a pretty poor view on African (not that she’s wrong but it’s not what my experience was).

My visits was to Lagos, Nigeria home of 9 million people (possibly much more).  It is a Democratic Republic modeled after the United States but only since 1999 when military rule ended.  Almost to a person, the Nigerians I talked to criticized the government for having a lack of leadership.  I find it ironic that we, as Americans, are having similar conversations about our 200+ year old democracy.

Lagos, in general, is a pretty modern city.  It has the longest bridge in Africa at 11.8 km that was built in 1990.  While it might not be up to American standards, it’s in good shape with only a few potholes.  If only the rest of their highway system was as up-to-day.  Unfortunately, the rest of the paved highway system is riddled with potholes though the ride to and from the airport was by far the worst, in my opinion.

Once you get off the paved roads you get to dirt roads (even in the city).  This is where the big, vehicle swallowing potholes exist.  Drivers avoid them at all costs so this means vehicles making wide swings around them.  If this means going into the oncoming traffic, well, that’s okay too.

The traffic is pretty bad on the highways and side streets and are packed during the morning and evening rush hours.  While there are traffic lights on Lagos Island (which really isn’t an island from what I gather) there are very few, if any, outside of that area.  Even the ones that ARE there don’t mean much as drivers blow through the red lights.  The highways might be marked for 3 lanes, but during the rush hours there are easily 5 lanes of traffic.  Round-abouts seem chaotic but there is an odd rhythm to merging.  Drivers use their horns on a constant basis.

Toyota and Honda vehicles are everywhere.  To a lesser extent there are Misubishi, Hundai, Volkswagon, and Mercedes Benes.  What is glaringly evident is there are NO American cars, of any sort, in any condition, anywhere to be found.  My only conclusion is that the American car companies are ignoring the Nigeria.  Is this true of rest of Africa?  I don’t know but it’s a shame Ford, GM, and Chrysler aren’t even trying to compete here.

Lagos has a lot of issues that it needs to solve.  Lack of education of a population that averages 19 years of age will haunt them for a long time.  Public education is not very good and those that can afford it send their kids to private schools.  Not everyone has access to running water and drinking water is even scarcer.  Bottled water is a necessity and street vendors sell water (of unknown quality) from big containers they push around in carts.

Power is inconsistent, at best.  This forces those that can afford it, to run generators.  For a business it’s a necessity to have one since power might be off for days.  The power poles in residential areas are a mish-mash of electrical cables strung up haphazardly.  There was more than one occasion where I saw sparks showering down from a pole.  In my opinion, the only way to fix this is to start over from scratch and build a new grid – an audacious project.

The police are not necessarily your friends.  I went to a busy market one afternoon and we were pulled over by the police.  As I was saying to a friend, this might be the first case I’ve ever been pulled over for “driving while white.”  After the initial indignation and some arguing my host and driver apologized profusely and asked what the fine was and we ‘got off’ for 1000 Nairra (~ $10 USD).  I saw plenty of other instances where the police were taking ‘fine money’ on the spot both in the street and in the airport.

The company I was doing the training for employees a lot of people.  Their offices were as modern and efficient as most I see in the states.  They make a variety of food products and during a tour of their facilities I was impressed with how clean they were and were comparable (mostly) to food processing facilities I’ve worked at in the States.  I was amazed at how many people worked an average ‘line’.  We’d most likely have one or two people running a line where they would have six but my guess is those six work for much, much less than what our two Americans would.

The IT folks I was doing the training for were pretty sharp guys.  They caught on to Real Studio very quickly and by the end of the week were using Real Studio to create a simple CRUD application for invoices (with relational data) using both the Desktop Edition and Web Edition.  They were pretty happy with it its ease of use and its ability to create any type of application using the business logic they wanted (rather than the enforced business logic of their current tool).

The Nigerians working for this company represent where the country could go, in my opinion.  They have a stable job, learning some valuable skills, and have a thirst for more.  They have extra money at the end of the month that they can spend on things.  They want their kids to have a better life than what they’ve had (don’t we all!?).  This sounds a lot like middle class America.

Obviously the company they work for is investing a ton of resources into the African continent and it’s paying off for them.  They sell their product in most of African (which is 50-some countries in total).  If the trend continues, this burgeoning middle class will be a force to be reckoned with in the future.

The company I did the training for deals with a lot of guests from other parts of African and Europe.  They had protocol people pick me up and drop me off at the airport and helping me through Nigerian customs.  They had a guest flat with a cook (who in my opinion could be a top chef in the states).  They also provided a driver (thank God giving the road conditions).  I say all this because I never once, felt unsafe in my trip (okay the police shaking us down for money made me a little nervous).

I had an enjoyable experience.  I didn’t get sick on any food and I was in air conditioning the entire time.  If I was invited to go to Nigeria again would I?  If it was for a company in Lagos that is used to hosting foreigners and expats I’d do some checking and probably say yes.  Would I do work again for this same company?  In a heartbeat.

Again, sorry for the rambling account.  There are just SO many differences and similarities that it’s hard to remember them all.

We all have our comfort zones.  You know, we do the things we’re comfortable doing because we’ve done it a lot or we don’t have to think about it very hard.  I have them, you have them, we all do.  It’s part of human nature.

I guess I must be getting older (and wiser?) because every now and then I leave my comfort zone on purpose.  I always get more out of the experience than I bargained for though not always in the way I expect.

Today, I embark on one of those radical departures from my comfort zone.  I am going to Nigeria to do Real Studio training for a company thinking about switching to Real Studio for their business needs.  This is a great opportunity for me to teach (something I like doing) about a product I spend a lot of time using.  Getting to travel when someone else is paying is even better.  I’ve managed to do this for London and Hong Kong in addition to many US and Canadian cities too numerous to mention.

This will be an interesting adventure.  I’ve never been to Africa and I’m going to a place that has a State Department travel warning.  Oh joy.  But, I believe (and hope) that my hosts are taking good care of me and handling security.  Since they seem to do this for their European bigwigs I don’t expect that to be a problem.  But I do have addresses and phone numbers for the US Embassy and other security ‘options’.  Never hurts to have a plan B.

The joys of international travel begins with the immunizations.  I joke that I’m now prepared for any sort of post apocalyptic disaster when the diseases hit.

Unlike my year long stay in Hong Kong 15 years ago where the internet was still kind of special, I fully expect I’ll be ‘online’ for a good portion of my stay.  It will be interesting to see how well all that works as I’ve been told to expect power outages and variable internet connectivity.

Speaking of the internet:  I like to joke with people that I’m going to Nigeria to go find that damn prince that keeps sending me all those emails!

By nature I’m an introvert and I am a little concerned that one of most populous cities in Africa will be overwhelming.  It wasn’t a big deal in Hong Kong so I don’t expect to be a problem here, but you just never know.  The other thing that could take some getting used to is being the clear and obvious minority.  In Hong Kong it wasn’t too bad because there were Brit’s everywhere and they were just part of the environment.  I don’t think I’ll be afforded the same luxury on this trip.

I work for myself so I don’t talk a lot.  I know that when I do my training videos and I spend 3 or 4 hours talking into a computer I have to be careful and drink extra water so the pipes don’t start to hurt.  I’ll be training for 8 hours a day for 5 days so it could be rough.  Add in that I can’t drink the tap water and it will be even more interesting.

Packing for an overseas trip is harder than a domestic trip.  If you go to Chicago and forget your deodorant you pop into your local Walmart (even gas station) and just pick some up.  I don’t know, does Nigeria even have Walmart or a local equivalent?

Anyway, I look forward to this adventure.  I’m sure it will generate many stories and laughter (at my expense probably) and I can’t wait to tell you all about it.

I’m sure I’ll give an update once I’m back.  Happy coding!

Today I side-step the usual business of talking about Real Studio and programming and diverge a bit into science and politics.  Not much, but since today is the last launch of the space shuttle Atlantis it seemed appropriate.

I’m sure many of you are in the same boat that I am.  I can’t remember a time when NASA wasn’t doing something big, something people told them was impossible.  It was, and still is in my opinion, inspiring to many people.  And this just isn’t for Americans, I think this holds true for many people in the world.  They do (and have done) the hard things not because they are hard but because they want to answer important questions that satisfy the human curiosity.

Growing up in the 1970′s I remember the inspiring stories and amazing video footage from NASA.  In the 1980′s I remember the beginning of the Space Shuttle program and I can remember what I was doing and where I was when I heard about the Challenger disaster in 1986.  I was attending an engineering school and I knew classmates that eventually went on to work for NASA.  NASA really defined my generation of technicians, scientists and engineers in my opinion.

So today the end of an era is unfolding and NASA has nothing to replace the shuttle.  To get astronauts into space we have to pay Russia $50 million a seat to get them into space.  It might be a bargain, but it sticks in my craw as an American to have spent so much time, effort, money and the lives of astronauts to just abandon our efforts.

James P Hogan, a science fiction writer (who died just a year ago this week) once wrote a short story (I believe it was for Omni Magazine) where the premise was that the Russian and American space programs were doomed and that the Chinese would become the dominate players in space.  In the compendium that I read years after that short story was published, he argued that NASA was a clear example of the wrong way to run a space program.

His arguments are valid, at least to a certain extent.  The American space program had a number of competing programs in the late 1950′s (under various government and military agencies) and each had their own ideas on the best way to get into space (and stay there).  When NASA was founded, the competing programs went away and because of that they had to settle on ONE way to get into space.  Who knows, maybe one of the competing ways was better than what NASA ended up using.  We’ll never know.

His second argument was that NASA proved, unfortunately, that you literally could throw money at a problem to solve it.  That’s a simplification, of course, but it is true that many pieces of the Gemini, Apollo and shuttle programs cost billions of dollars (those are in 1970′s dollars!).  I have no doubt that SOME of that money was wasted but I think of all the stuff that had to be invented first before they could solve the problem.  Engineering isn’t cheap when you have to invent new ways of doing things!

The shuttle program continued to push the boundaries of the technology of the time.  The push for lighter, stronger, more heat resistant materials was a boon for the material science community.  The push for lighter, faster computers can be felt too in todays computers.  But NASA is much more than just about space exploration.  They host a whole range of scientific endeavors – not all of it for space.  It’s not hard to find a list of research discoveries that have made their way into public use  http://curiosity.discovery.com/topic/transportation-science/ten-nasa-inventions.htm.

For fiscal year 2010 NASA’s budget was about $18.7 billion dollars.  There’s no argument that that’s a lot of money.  The total cost of the war in Iraq, however, has cost the US taxpayers about $786 billion with another $431 billion for the war in Afghanistan.  Put into perspective, the cost of those two wars could fund NASA, at current levels, for 65 years!

The relatively new Department of Homeland Security budget request for 2011 was $56.3 billion which, according to my calculations, would allow NASA to operate for three years.  I would argue that NASA does more for our country (and the world) than the Department of Homeland Security.  Feel free to argue amongst yourselves if you disagree.

Many people have assumed that private industry will pick up the mantle of space travel.  I’ve heard it argued that NASA restricts private sector growth in space travel because it is the de-facto arbiter of all things space-related in the US.  That might be true but the sad fact is that, with a few notable exceptions, getting into space is prohibitively expensive (for now) and therefore is more or less in realm of governments to handle.

Some things, like space exploration and other science research, require government assistance due to the sheer amounts of money required.  It is my personal belief that being in space and exploring our immediate environment, and doing basic scientific research is well worth the money because it’s an investment in the future.

Sorry for the soapbox.  We now go back to our regularly scheduled programming….

Hi Folks, sorry for being so quiet recently.  It’s been a rough month with my mother going into the ER, then ICU, and then into hospice and finally her funeral this week.  She had a long illness but I don’t think you’re ever really prepared for the end.

I was fortunately to be able to spend a considerable amount of time with her this past month.  Despite all of the stress I am thankful for friends, family and even employees that have gone the extra mile in helping me out.  It’s never a good time in ones life but the support was awesome.

I didn’t get nearly as much work as I was hoping to do during this period but it was comforting to know that I could connect to my home computer and get any file that I needed.  Heck, if I wanted to I could have done all of my work ON the home computer from my laptop or even iPad over the internet but the lag time was rather annoying.

But, being able to check and respond to emails, surf the web and do a lot of general stuff on my iPhone and iPad made life a little easier.  The thought of dragging a laptop around with me all the time was tiresome and the iPad was distracting when I needed it to be.  Be nice if someday I could do software development ON the iPad.  I bet that will take less than 5 years for that to happen.  Just guessing but I see no reason why you couldn’t.

Well, that’s that and I hope to be re-inserting myself back into normal life over the next couple of days.  Thank you again for all of your condolences and warm thoughts.

Bob K.

In the first part of this series I talked about how I got involved with Real Studio.  In part two I talked about some of things I’m currently doing in Real Studio.  In this post I’ll talk a little about the future and what I think where Real Studio will be in the future and my needs and wants as a professional user.

For many people, using Real Studio is a Love-Hate relationship.  Mine is no different.  I’ve been using it for over ten years and while I find it easy to use and very powerful, there are times I feel like putting my fist through the monitor due to frustration.

Real Software releases a new version of Real Studio roughly every ninety days as part of their Rapid Release Model.  From one aspect it’s nice since I know when a new version is going to get released and plan for it.  I know that there will be some new features and a whole bunch of bug fixes.

Unfortunately getting a new version is often an exercise in futility because new releases can sometimes break existing functionality.  Since I work on so many projects I’m often waiting on a particular bug fix in the next version so I’m forced to upgrade.  The frustration of finding yet another bug upon trying the new release is sometimes too much.  If you find me grousing about Real Studio (see last summers Windows rants) it’s generally after one of these types of upgrades.

I’ve been very critical of RS in past because of new features that just plain don’t work.  Rightly so, in my opinion.  New features don’t get tested in the beta process because there’s usually no documentation and usually no example projects showing how it’s used.  Either case is bad and it has to get better.  The perception that Real Studio is buggy, wether right or wrong, has to improve.

Look, I know that every release has significant bug fixes and only a few new features.  I know because I’m part of the beta program and have been for a long time.  But as a beta member I don’t feel like the program lets me help Real Software very much.  I can’t tell you how many times I report a bug, it’s gets marked as fixed and then I have to scour the release notes looking for bug reports that look like mine.

The feedback system and releases aren’t designed to help me verify the fix.  I feel that a bug isn’t fixed until the bug reporter has verified the fix.  From my aspect it’s very inefficient and I wish it was better.  But since it’s not my system I can’t do much about other than offer suggestions.

The future on Mac OS X is Cocoa.  I expect that in the next release or two, the Mac OS X IDE will be built for Cocoa.  When that happens, you’ll know that Cocoa is really ready.  Building for Cocoa will give RB users the ability to harness some of the Cocoa goodies that Mac users come to expect from their applications.

Unfortunately, Cocoa isn’t going to help Windows or Linux as it just makes the platforms that much more different.  However, I do know that much of the work that has gone into Cocoa has involved rewriting major portions of Windows and Linux to fit the newer event models rather than the old Carbon/Classic model.  I don’t know the specifics but it wouldn’t surprise me if almost all of the frameworks was rewritten accomplish this.

I’m not sure where Windows is heading in the future.  Real Software is a Mac heavy company and it’s hard to know how serious they are about Windows.  Last summer there were some very easy and very serious Windows bugs that bit me very hard (because of the upgrade cycle) that very nearly cost me a big project.  I just don’t see much going on for advanced Windows support but perhaps that is just a byproduct of the march to Cocoa.  After ten years they still don’t have full COM support and without it there’s just a bunch of stuff that Real Studio won’t be able to do.  It’s also unknown when 64bit support is coming and when Microsoft will switch over to a full 64 bit OS.  I think this is as every bit as important as the switch to Cocoa on the Mac side.

I have reservations about Linux support.  I wonder if the time and effort is worth it in sales for Real Software.  As a consultant I get no one asking for Linux apps but perhaps that’s anecdotal evidence since I’m heavy into Mac and Windows development.  Also anecdotally my blog and website just have a few percentage points of Linux users that visit on a regular basis.

We know that a User Interface change is coming.  Geoff demoed it at the Atlanta Summit but no pictures have surfaced yet.  From what I can remember, it should reduce mouse clicks as the Project Tab will be easily accessible all the time.  Unused events will not show in the Events list until you add them (I believe the most common event(s) will automatically be added).  A new tool palette was revealed that reminded me very much of xCode/Interface Builder.

I would also expect a lot of the Web Edition editor features will make it into the new IDE.  The in-line editors are generally okay but I’m not a huge fan of them.  I really hate the new Tab Order Editor as it’s confusing once you get more than a dozen controls on the window.  I’m also not a big fan of the object handles (that allow you to resize controls) since they’re a major pain to use – they disappear when you’re resizing.  This means that controls have to have special visual modes to show their sizes unlike the current Window Editor where controls have a visible outline.

One feature that I do like is the pasteboard that is automatically populated at the bottom of the WE page editor when placing non-visual objects (like timers).  This probably means that Dialogs will be rewritten to act just like the new WebDialogs.  One can hope that they will retain the existing methods.  I also expect the Radio Button control to be replaced by the RadioGroup – again, similar to what Web Edition did.

Some of these changes make a lot of sense from a beginner perspective.  They are common questions from new users and are a solution to aid them.  From a power user perspective I’m trying to be as open as I can to the changes.  Some will grow on me I’m sure with usage.  Others, I’m just as sure, will make me pine for the ‘old days’.

We can only hope that Real Software has a feature complete IDE when it makes it into the beta program and lets hope that they’re not adding major functionality to it during the beta.  Otherwise I expect a chorus of very vocal naysayers and boo birds.  A User Interface change is a big deal and should not be taken lightly.  I hope they do their own (very strenuous) internal testing on it before foisting it on us.

Eventually, Real Software will switch the back-end compiler to LLVM.  RBScript is already using LLVM and while that was a significant step, it’s probably going to be a lot of work to switch over all of Real Studio to it.  If my sources are correct, they’re going to writing their own linker for Windows which I have no doubt is more work than they expect (Cocoa was only going to take 18 months remember?).

Will LLVM lead to Real Studio being able to compile for iPhone and other mobile devices?  My answer is a big maybe.  I have a hard time figuring out the marketing for including mobile devices in the current product other than to saying you can reuse much of the same code, but just like with Web Edition you really have a separate product with separate editors and separate compilers.  I have no problem with a mobile optimized IDE that leaves the cruft of desktop and web apps behind.  I think it could be brought to market faster that way too.  Like much of the rest of this post, it’s pure speculation on my part.

One thing I wish was improved was the Real Studio debugger.  Anyone that’s come from the Visual Basic and .NET world understands what I’m saying.  The Real Studio IDE debugger just isn’t easy to use.  No watchpoints and always having to refer to the listbox to view variable values is huge pain (wouldn’t it be nice to hover your mouse over a variable and get the value in a tooltip?).  Many Real Studio users don’t even realize that you can view the call stack since it’s a popup menu (poor UI choice, in my opinion).  Many also don’t get the whole breakpoint and exception handling either.

There is still a bunch of essential controls missing from the standard control list.  After ten years there’s still no date, time, or calendar control.  While the standard listbox is fairly powerful, it’s a beast and you just get to a certain point where it’s too slow and cumbersome to use.  For those needing them, they’re forced to use a 3rd party set of controls.

I think much of these limitations is all based on how Real Software uses the tool themselves.  The IDE has absolutely no need for grid, date, time, or calendar controls.  You could certainly argue that the reason why the TextArea RTF support is so weak is because the IDE has no need for it.  The same with the lackluster support for TextField masks.  Likewise, to the best of my knowledge, the IDE does not use the built-in reporting tool and, it too, suffers from having no strenuous use from the company that designed it.  Modern toolbars?  Need I say more?

I’ve argued for years that RS could really use a consulting group that bids and works on projects just like the rest of us consultants.  A lot of the projects I work on run into the same constraints time and time again and I’m forced into less that optimal solutions.  I can submit Feedback reports until my fingers bleed, but until RS has to fulfill a need for themselves it probably won’t happen.  Personally, I’d welcome them into the consulting business.  Sure, it means more competition for me personally, but I’m okay with that as it will make the product better.

Sorry for the rambling post as there are lot of things that I’d love to see RS do a better job at and improve in the product.  I really do appreciate the work they’ve done as it pays for my, and my employees, salaries.  As a professional user my needs are vastly different than a majority of Studio users but as someone who spends a considerable amount of money on yearly license updates and the referral program, and spend a lot of effort selling the product to clients I feel that my needs should be aired publicly.  My time with ARBP has shown that many of you agree to varying degrees.

Those are some of my wants, needs, future predictions, fears, worries and gripes.  What say you?