Is it me or do other people find Revolution generally buggy?

[rolandw]

I am beginning to get very frustrated by it. I find that Mac based breakpoints sometimes work, sometimes don't (acutally keying in "breakpoint" as a line and applying the code is more reliable). I'm getting errors thrown up on comment lines that are properly formatted and colourized as comments. Handlers and functions just skip execution midway through with no error reports. And there are many other such issues each of which cause me to groan loudly especially as there is nothing concrete enough to generate a real bug report.

I'm now at a stage where I need to rebuild an application from being XML based to database based and I'm left worrying... should I stick with Revolution and its bugs or should I go elsewhere? I mean its a great idea and when it works it works really well but its not good for my peace of mind!

[BvG]

I never have any of these problems...

But then, I never use the debugger, set breakpoints and do not trust the error reporting of rev due to a long lasting relationship full of hate, lies and deceptions (don't ask for details...).

[rolandw]

But isn't a debugger an integral part of an IDE? If you don't use a debugger then how do you find out what the hell is going on?

[LESTROSO]

hy rolandw, for me the debugger of revolution ide 2.8.0 works fine, but

sometimes give me error without real sense, but when i made standalone my

app work fine.....yes it's true revolution have some bugs but it's the best

developer tool that i ever seen.............we will wait for software

improvements.........(like unix-linux-mac classic compilation......)

bye

lestroso

[Lynn P.]

I am beginning to get very frustrated by it. I find that Mac based breakpoints sometimes work, sometimes don't (acutally keying in "breakpoint" as a line and applying the code is more reliable). I'm getting errors thrown up on comment lines that are properly formatted and colourized as comments. Handlers and functions just skip execution midway through with no error reports. And there are many other such issues each of which cause me to groan loudly especially as there is nothing concrete enough to generate a real bug report.

...

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Hi rolandw ~
I'm using Rev 2.8.1 on a Mac OS 10.4.10 and have no problems with the debugger as of late. I do remember having a problem in earlier versions of Rev with disappearing breakpoints which drove me nuts. I agree that a reliable debugger is imperative.

It's hard to say what the problem is if it's inconsistant. It seems odd that it would throw errors even on comment codes. What sort of errors are you getting on that specific issue?
As I recall ... if you are using the "Send" command the debugger doesn't track those, so handlers and functions using "Send" may get skipped over.
I use the debugger a lot and it's been reliable for me for the past year at least. Knock on wood...
Maybe if you posted snippets of code that flake out in the debugger? Can you isolate any section that the debugger chokes on consistently?

Lynn P.

[Ricklionhart]

I never use the debugger, I just put commands in my script like

put davalue && davalue2
answer "OK"

That way I can monitor only the variables I want to watch (using the messagebox) - I find Rev's Variable Watcher isn't updated frequently enough to be truly useful. Inserting a pointless answer command is my way of pausing the flow of the program so that I can check the variable against its expected value, then continue.

I guess the lesson is that in a language like Revolution, which is expandable, there is usually more than one way to do anything. The best way is whatever suits YOU best.

[xApple]

Instead of answer "OK" it might be better to use the form put "OK". This places the value in message box and prevents halting your execution. And for more complex scripts you can even use fields. Though sometimes it can be really useful to follow your scripts step by step.

[mblackman]

You might try Galaxy and its debugger. I use the Windows version myself which works well but I believe the Mac version is fine too. It also has a feature where you can take a snapshot of all your variable values at a particular script line without halting execution.

[DavidBurleigh]

[Edited by assistant moderator on 19 April @ 8:13PDT]

I'm using 2.9 on a thinkpad T60 using Ubuntu 7.10 and I'll tell you, I have system crashes all the time. The whole computer crashes. mouseEnter works when I'm not in runtime and keeps me from being able to edit groups, so I have to disable the function until I'm complete finished, menus pop up all over the place except for where they are supposed to be, and on an on.

It appears that rev is far too interested in adding graphics manipulation features like including idiot quicktime files and that other useless stuff 99% of us will never need rather than build a rock solid environment first - one that provides a solid environment that most people will need; and THEN after you have no more bugs, you can start adding all the dumbshit.

I bought my package 3 years ago, but it wouldn't work in Ubuntu, only Redhat, so I've only recently been able to get an clean install on an Ubuntu box (since Dec).

The documentation for 2.9 is unbelievably bad. I've never ever had an environment where the docs sucked so bad. There are almost no code examples in both books. Even the online docs suck. I've got the pdfs for the 3.0 release and they suck too. It's almost like they expect everyone to fight through the learning curve one line at a time instead of providing whole snippets that clearly ouline the complete use of a function, message, etc.

The fact that, in 2.9, that they don't have a working and flexible data grid tells me that they don't have good management. Apparently 3.5 has one. The question should be asked, why the f_ has it taken so long to get a working data grid? This company has been in business for over 10 years and that is a very common object in every single IDE. what about a working tree object? non-existent. why the f_ don't they have a working tree object? Altuit has one, but it doesn't use dynamic XML as the tree rebuilds every time you call it. What happens if my nodes are states, and then the children are cities; am I expected to load in every city for every state to build an initial tree? ridiculous. So then I have to recall the tree to include the additional xml information in the xmlsource page, and have it rebuilt? What about drop and drag between trees? what a nightmare that is to code; yet, I can get an ajax app for free that does all of that no problem, and I can't incorporate ajax into my code - or java, or c or javascript, or PHP, or bash, or on an on. I have to compile an external to be able to do any of that. those should be f_ing libraries I can just #include, but no.

Needless to say, I'm really pissed about the management decisions being made by this company. I'm seriously thinking of going to Flex. I can't imagine how this company makes its hiring decisions and to further that idea, I can't imagine how they have been able to stay in business all of these years. The owner must just be super rich and doesn't mind throwing money at a pet project.

[FourthWorld]

As an assistant to the moderators here I edited three short strings in your post, replacing offensive language with an underscore. With the mix of professionals and even some children here, the forums aim for a more professional tone.

FWIW, I run Rev on Ubuntu at least weekly, sometimes daily. It may be helpful to know the specifics of your Ubuntu installation to help pin down the source of the trouble.

[DavidBurleigh]

I didn't realize that children would be entering into an adult's technical forum. I certainly take no umbrage to editing, but to edit because it might offend a 'Professional' is nearsighted and juvenile. There is no such thing as a professional. I have three graduate degrees, one of which is a law degree, a masters in computer science and an MBA in quantitative finance. I have never met anyone in my entire life that was competent at very much. We might be good a few things in this world, like a surgeon who does knee replacements all day long, but that doesn't mean he knows anything about fixing his own car.

The only difference between the rich and poor, is that the rich have money. They aren't any smarter, in the aggregate, and certainly don't deserve any deference by the general population. George Bush was about the dumbest person out there and he became President - this is the archetype of my thesis.

Anyway, I'll stick to topic and language in the future. thanks

[DavidBurleigh]

I just reread your post, do you want my dmesg?

send me your email. I'm at incomex@hotmail.com

[FourthWorld]

I didn't realize that children would be entering into an adult's technical forum. I certainly take no umbrage to editing, but to edit because it might offend a 'Professional' is nearsighted and juvenile

Agreed. It was merely a polite euphemism. I appreciate your understanding.

[Garrett]

Believe it or not, you do find a lot of young kids in forums for many programming languages you'd not expect too see.

As for Rev on Linux. Well, I haven't had a version for Linux or Mac in a while. Last time I ran the IDE on Linux, Ubuntu no less and it was Rev 2.4 and probably several several versions of Ubuntu ago. But I had absolutely not a single problem running it on Linux.

Of course much has changed with not only Rev since then, but as well for Ubuntu.

I also at one time was running Rev on OS X (PPC) and didn't have any major issues there either.

Though there were some bug issues back then with Rev in general, they seem to have covered just about all the issues I ever had.

The only thing left that I would like to see from Rev is a good solid treeview implementation that works consistently across platforms. I've rolled my own treeviews, and it's a freakin pain doin that. Of course, since I'm limited, my treeviews end up being limited too!

Anyway... If you can find out any specifics of the problems, note them on the forums here. There's some seriously sharp people here who just might be able to solve the problems for you. Plus, if it's a bug, post it at that bug tracking thingy they have somewhere. (Sorry, but I'm still stubborn regarding that and feel I should be able to posts bugs here and someone from Rev pick up on it and post it on their own bug tracking thingy instead of me having to go out of my way to do it... I paid Rev so I could make programs, not spend time fiddling with some bug tracking thingy!). They do keep track of the issues, they do try to track them down and they do fix them when they find the problem. Sometimes it takes them a while, but they eventually get to them.

All things said, I'm more than happy with Rev and would hug all the ladies that work at Rev and shake the hands of all the men that work at Rev. And that's a lot coming from me, because I'm not a hugging and hand shaking person.