Re: Development

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When Nathan Sivin (and David Auerbach) write " REXX is a more
obvious choice than BASIC" my reaction is that we are,
indirectly, dsicussing the "industry standard" and OS issues
again. I am not aware of any critical mass of Windows (as
oposed to OS/2) programs that use REXX as their programming
language, and Microsoft, Lotus, CA, Symantec and others all use
a variant of VB. Not to mention Microsoft's incredible push for
VBA as the "glue" between all of their applications.

If I want our products to be widely accepted, I think I am far
less likely to encounter resistance if they can be easily
integrated, and I am sure the ratio of organizations with some
familiarity (or willingness to develop familiarity) with VB to
those with REXX is heavily weighted towards VB. Granted for
purposes of this discussion that REXX is a technically superior
language, I have to believe that VB is "good enough".

Now I know will hear a chorus of "Isn't it a pity that TTG is
willing to settle for 'good enough' when it could have better."
But when you are trying to develop products that will sell
enough copies to support an organization and fuel further
development, you have to be sure that the market is wide enough
to support you. I believe choosing REXX, while probably
immensely popular with our most technical users, could cause
great resistance with the balance of the market we must reach.
Given that, and given my belief that VB (especially together
with XPL) would be a substantial leap forward for XyWrite, makes
me believe that good enough is quite good.

K.