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Re: Why I don't use Dylan

"Rob Myers" <robmyers@cwcom.net> wrote in message
B58F68FF.4091%robmyers@cwcom.net">news:B58F68FF.4091%robmyers@cwcom.net...
> Having communicated with Functional Objects personnel in both public and
> private email, and having read through the business plans and white papers
> on their web site, I can assure you that I have not got this impression.
> They seem to be a hard working group of very capable people dedicated to
> moving Functional Developer forward.

  I hope you don't mind me jumping in here.

  For some reason that I don't understand, computer programming is based on
a popularity contest.  The faintest whiff of suspicion on the future of any
development system is enough to send it into the trash by the vast majority
of the user it's targetted at. Sometimes this is deserved, consider
ProGraph's almost-comical series of "we're back!" followed by "sorry, dead
again".

  However, consider Dylan at Apple.  Seems to me that the vast majority of
Mac users are still better off on Dylan than they are on, say, C++ for the
"average" project, and yet it's usage is effectively zero.  There's a number
of good reasons for this, but an equal number of bad ones that are likely
more often the case.

  My point is that I'm not sure Ex-Harlequin personnel mean anything one way
or the other.  They do not have the market clout to have a serious name, and
as a result I'd suspect they'll shortly have "day jobs" like Pictorius does
today, if not already.  And that just makes the matter worse.

  Too bad really, if only BillJ wanted a new Dylan rather than a new C++...

> SourceForge has an air of "amateur project" about it that I'm not sure
would
> help. The public sources are freely available with the Functional
Developer
> downloads, so if a neutron bomb does get dropped near their offices,
you'll
> still have them. Some are even on the Gwydion site and CVS server.

  Methinks you doth protest too much.  Let me assure you that escrow on
SourceForce would help credibility far more than it would hurt! This is an
excellent suggestion, you shouldn't write it off so easily.

> This is company confidential stuff for a start-up, so I can't imagine them
> letting us know.

  Sounds to me like you're all too willing to be their appologist.  The
issue here is credibility, I'd say that the company would be happy to tell
you if you asked in order to support just that.

Maury
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