Download magazine - Jonathan Hoyle

What about REALbasic’s $99 Standard (non-Pro) edition? Runtime Revolution has an answer to that as well: for
that same price, they offer DreamCard, a “light” version of RR. DreamCard stacks are not applications in the true
sense but rather documents that require the DreamCard player (which is free to download and distribute). In this
way, DreamCard is more like HyperCard than REALbasic. DreamCard uses the same Transcript language and is
cross-platform (via the free players available), but lacks certain power features such as SSL and databasing
capabilities.
Conclusion
Runtime Revolution is an excellent environment for application development, particularly for students and
hobbyists. Script writers will find themselves with the ability to generate cross-platform applications with relative
ease. The $299 price is a bit high compared with similar IDE’s, but if you are willing to forgo the actual creation of
an application, you can purchase DreamCard for a third that price and distribute stacks instead.
Regardless of which direction you choose, creating cross-platform applications comes with ease with Runtime
Revolution’s line of products. Non-programmers and script writers will not find a better environment with which to
work.
Coming Up Next Month: AMPC (Axiomatic Multi-Platform C)!
MPN, LLC 2006 macCompanion
Page 13
February 2006, Volume 4 Issue 2