World: r4wp

It's actually pretty easy to see how they managed it. It was:

- A multi-language IDE (not a programming language, people already 
get those for free)
- With a GUI with an emphasis on modern graphic design (pretty!)
- With a fancy demo (more pretty!)

- With an initial focus on programming languages and development 
platforms that are already popular (built-in customer base)


Powerful IDEs are some of the only development tools that people 
are still willing to pay money for (i.e. Visual Studio). Most people 
can't choose what language they write in, but they more often can 
choose their IDE. And for crappy-but-IDE-friendly languages, an IDE 
can make all the difference in your productivity. They're not as 
helpful for really powerful extensible languages like Rebol or Perl, 
unless the language is so bad that just about anything would help 
(Perl). Plus, since an IDE is an end-user app you can afford to GPL 
it, since the only stuff built on it are add-ons - that doesn't work 
for programming languages unless they have a clear distinction between 
user code and built-in code that is distinct enough to not violate 
the GPL distinctions, because most of the competition is permissive 
- and without the GPL restrictions there is nothing to sell, so there 
is no business model to get a return on investment.


It's nice to point to other open source projects and say "See! We 
could have done that!" but unless those are comparable projects their 
success isn't comparable either.

How many investors did it take to raise that much money? Because 
if it was more than 100, that goes past the expected limit of how 
many people would have been willing to invest in the Rebol programming 
language. Don't underestimate the power of popularity.

Programming language projects for (unfairly) unpopular programming 
languages are not commercial endeavors anymore, they're charities. 
GPL/commercial programming languages that might possibly GPL-infect 
the user programs are just dead now - they're not even sad anymore. 
It doesn't matter if the license is carefully arranged to make user 
programs not affected; most users aren't lawyers and there are much 
more unambiguously permissive no-cost alternatives out there that 
might be good enough, and some of them are popular.

Don't knock charities though. Charities can be very successful if 
they get enough industry support. Python, Perl and GCC are made by 
charities.

And it doesn't take a lot to run a programming language charity for 
a somewhat minimalist language. You don't need a lot of people to 
get the job done. Something maximalist like .NET or Java (when you 
include their runtime libraries) can need a lot of people, but something 
small like Rebol or Red doesn't need as much. You can get enough 
people to fund development even for a charity project just by being 
useful enough.

LiveCode is not a multi-language IDE. The IDE supports one langauge 
LIveCode.which is a descendant of xTalk.

Oh, I was getting it mixed up with the recent successful IDE launch 
on Kickstarter. Let me check.

OK, so it's a single-language IDE aimed primarily at the education 
market, still with a nice-looking GUI if not as modern, with an appeal 
based on Apple-fan nostalgia for HyperCard. That's a tougher sell, 
but since it's education market you can get away with GPL/commercial, 
and since it's Apple-nostalgia you can raise that much money from 
merely thousands of investors instead of the millions that you'd 
need if you were going for a less-well-off target market. Makes sense, 
but it's still nice to see.

(Sorry, can't edit here) millions -> many tens of thousands

I helps that it is an established commercial product for the development 
of mobile apps. People still buy tools for mobile app development, 
though GPL/commercial development programming languages are still 
pretty rare now even there.

Looks like we have the education market to blame for the GPL/commercial 
model. I wish them luck.

Brian, maybe you were thinking of LightTable
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ibdknox/light-table

It also did pretty well.

Yup, that was it.

Oh, LiveCode specifically makes the apps you make with it GPLv3 unless 
you buy the commercial version. Education market...

Or just buy the product.

Livecode is a great tool - the values remind me a low  of what made 
REBOL attractive years ago.  It's just a really productive and well 
designed tool, easy to use, powerful, cross platform (iOS, Android, 
Windows, Mac, Linux, server), it's SIMPLE and geared towards getting 
work accomplished.  That's it's only goal, and the company has always 
tried to make good real-world choices about productivity.  And they're 
keeping the system modern and relevent.  The REBOL community would 
be helped by watching what they do...

low -> lot

Well, we can't follow their business model, but there is a lot of 
other stuff we can learn from them.

As good as REBOL is it could use a good IDE environment.  AmigaVision 
comes to mind.  I would be interested to see whether some large chunks 
of change were invested to put them over the top.  Right now R3 needs 
a message. What makes it special and valuable. What vision does it 
conjure up.

As great as Livecode is, REBOL's language model is still better, 
simpler, more powerful.

It's got more potential

I recently put this up:  http://easiestprogramminglanguage.com

But has it got the momentum?

I think it still can.  Hypercard was dead many years ago.

Android will help.

I'm interested in putting some marketing muscle into promoting it 
- or very likely RED.

The business model incompatibility was the only criticism I had - 
the product looks good, with a lot we could learn from and possibly 
do better. I'm not a marketing guy though, just a social analyst, 
so I can't help on the message.

If I can make some money teaching REBOL lessons, there may be an 
income model for me to pursue.

I've been doing some work to clarify the potential markets.  Just 
doing it part time now, but I think there's real potential.

Kids, Non-Programmers, Entrepreneurs, other education markets - a 
lot of the same covered by Livecode, actually.

I think eduction is a great market for REBOL.  Net Logo actually 
did well in education.  If Education is the goal a great IDE is the 
place to start.  Something like a high quality layout.r or AmigaVision.

I'd support that.

I personally don't think it's necessary.  I want to keep REBOL as 
light as possible.

But tools that make it even easier, without bloat - that could only 
help.

The IDE would be an App that could even be sold.

There you go - a potential income model.

We need more entrepreneurs in this community.

And maybe 10-20 more gurus.

Hypercard worked because it had a very simple IDE approach.  Power 
users became proficient at scripting and teachers shared their cards.

The approach needs to provide tools so easy you can layout an app 
as easily as making a powerpoint presentation, but with the power 
underneath to do absolutely anything.

I'd be willing to bet I could net $100000 next year teaching REBOL, 
no matter what happens with the language and tools.  Just using them 
as they stand.

I already know I can sell the benefits.

In a classroom, imagine if the "powerpoint" allowed students to connect 
their smart phones to the presentation and control aspects of a weather 
simulation, or control a point on a Cartesian coordinate plane.  
The trick is to make this so easy to do that teachers can do it like 
they make power points.

Some teachers will want to do more and they will begin to learn how 
to write scripts.

Styles like a Cartesian plane could be added as someone makes them. 
 This is how hypercard became so popular.  People used hypercard 
who never made a card of thier own.

That's analagous to using a dialect.

With smartboards in most classrooms, the possibilities are really 
astounding.

Yes it is.  Now we're getting a bit technical in a learning sciences 
sense.  One of the things that makes a classroom such a rich learning 
environment is the presence of resources that mediate learning. They 
provide a medium through which learning activities can take place.

I think a little funding would go a long, long way towards bringing 
REBOL back up to speed, and back into a relevant and competitive 
position.