In many ways, Revolution developers share the general fanaticism of Apple users. The Revolution faithful treasure the chance to leapfrog traditional development as Apple users scoff at the quagmire that is Microsoft Windows. For me, the beautiful thing about both groups is an unselfish desire to promote a faster and simpler approach to computing.

I come from the dark world that often epitomizes corporate America. In the endless halls of cubicle that I once called home, I lurked amongst suspicious C# developers who cowardly protected their jobs by hiding tips and tricks from each other. These were the types of guys and gals who would intentionally (and insecurely) talk techy jargon over a poor user's head.

I never felt comfortable in that world. I have been an Apple user for years, and like other Apple enthusiasts who have experienced the other side of the fence, I feel inclined to share my passion for the Mac and the other technologies I endorse. None can I speak more highly of at the moment than Runtime Revolution.

In my spare time, I designed, developed, tested, and released my latest Revolution project, Imagine Poker, on both Mac and Windows in under three months. In my Seattle apartment, I wrote the first line of code on November 1st and by January 26th, both Mac and Windows versions were available and being enjoyed all over the world. A month later, I realized a profit and covered my rather ambitious graphical expenses. To this feat, I owe a lot to a little - to some unquestionable toil and motivation, to my local espresso joint, and of course, to Revolution.

Imagine Poker is a Texas Hold 'Em Poker game that puts you in a tournament where you must outwit notorious tacticians from history such as Napoleon and Stalin and other more imaginative characters like Dracula and Little Red Riding Hood. There are twelve players in all, and three tables to play.

Revolution's support for millions of colors, .PNG imports, and animated GIFs allowed this game to really come across beautifully when it was all put together. Simple techniques like image cloning and imagesource manipulation allowed for the elegant handling of chip movements and deck alternation respectively.

Imagine Poker is no slouch under the hood. In fact, I spent more time on the Artificial Intelligence layer than on either the interface or game engine. I found that if I used a behind-the scenes card-based system that contained up to eight traits for each character (aggression, money management, deception, etc.), Revolution happily facilitated my goal to create a robust, efficient, and extensible AI component.

Equally conducive to the game's success was the speedy processing of the core Texas Hold 'Em game engine. I have run into situations in the past where intensive floating point calculations were perhaps better served by a lower level language but in the case of Imagine Poker, Revolution handles the job perfectly on all but the slowest of processors.

Perhaps one of Revolution's strongest features is its mailing list, where fellow "Rev-heads" are all too happy to trade the tips and advice that would certainly overexert many of the traditional programmers I described above. I imagine the helpfulness of many of the list members stems from both kindness and pride in their environment of choice.

Indeed, one of the focal lessons of Imagine Poker's development is that so much more is capable in Revolution's English-like scripting language than meets the eye. The documentation in many cases hardly does justice to the language - but then perhaps that's why the mailing list flourishes.

As I celebrate the launch of my latest project, I sit back and lift a pint of nice Scottish ale and consider my ultimate Revolution impression: simplicity rules. It's the same thing I tell my PC-ridden friends to ease their interface fears before they make the switch to the Mac: think of how simple it could be.

Imagine Poker is available for Mac and Windows at: http://www.candywriter.com