Using Rev Mentor
Customers share their experiences

Doug Alder, Mark Srebnik and Obleo Beck, interviewed by Heather Nagey

If you read revUp regularly, you'll know that last edition we announced the launch of Rev Mentor, a new service from Jerry Daniels. As Customer Services Manager I'm really excited about this new service, because I know just how valuable it is going to be to many of you.

Over time Revolution has built up a library and community of support materials, tutorials, associated websites, books and resources, and every advance in this area has made my job a little easier. What has been missing, up to now, is a personal tutoring service where users can get all kinds of advice at a reasonable fee. I'm delighted to have the new option of referring customers looking for help and training to Rev Mentor.

So that you can get an idea of why I am so excited, I have sought out and interviewed three new users of Rev Mentor, to see who they are, what kind of person uses this service and what they are getting out of it already.

The Filemaker Programmer: Douglas Alder

Tell me a little about yourself, what kind of programming are you into?

I have been doing FileMaker programming since about 1989, so almost 20 years. At the beginning it was primarily for my own company, we set up a Customer Relationship Management system and grew a successful company using it. Then around 1997 I started doing consulting using FileMaker. That program continuously improved, from a fairly simple flat file database, into a full fledged relational database development environment. It is great for designing workgroup solutions quickly and efficiently. What it doesn't do is allow one to create unlimited runtime copies of the software. Because FileMaker makes most of its money selling licenses, they restrict some of the key features on their runtime. So, I looked at Revolution and was interested.

How long have you been using Revolution?

I bought it last summer, didn't  get much time to try it until just before the RunRev Live Conference in Las Vegas this spring. A couple of weeks before I started to read everything I could and worked on the tutorials. At the Conference, I learned many useful things about Revolution. One of the best things that happened there was that in one of the Code Kitchens, I got to sit down with Trevor Devore from Blue Mango Learning Systems. He spent an hour building the basic outline of the program I have been wanting to develop. This was a great start and helped enormously. It gave me confidence that Revolution was going to be able to do what I wanted. It also made me a little nervous that I would never be able to program as quickly and efficiently as someone like Trevor.

How easy/difficult did you find it to get into?

The basic tutorials are good and get one up and running. I then started looking at websites and found a number of useful  sources for information. I knew from working with FileMaker the kinds of things I needed to do, I just did not know how to achieve them in Revolution. I wanted someone like Trevor to send me in the right direction. He said he was too busy, so I was looking around for other good programmers to see if I could pay them for this type of architectural assistance.

Where did you hear about Rev Mentor?

I knew who Jerry was from the conference and I happened to be looking at  his Script Editor and was considering purchasing it. That was when I saw on his website that he was offering Mentoring. This was just what the doctor ordered, I signed up shortly after that.

How long have you been using it?

I have had 3 or 4 sessions, spread out over 1-2 week intervals. Each session would be one to two hours long and I would accumulate questions in anticipation of the next session. Unfortunately, I have had to put my project on hold for now, as I am in school until December. My intention is to pick it up again in January when I will have more time.

What exactly have you been using it for, and how does it help?

I am working on a program for sports coaching. It involves displaying two video images side by side, or overlaid, one movie on the other. We have used some of the external functions from the Quicktime plugin that Trevor created.

There were any number of times having Jerry there, saved me numerous hours going down the wrong path. It is not so much that Jerry has done the programming for me, but more like that he stood along the track and told me which turns to take, where the road gets bumpy and why I might want to take an alternate route because the road was washed out.

Do you think this site might be useful for other people? How so?

 Most definitely. Anyone wanting to learn Revolution will probably hit a middle level where they have done all the examples they can find and watched the online tutorials, read through the BYU courseware and still have questions. That is where I think Jerry  and his RevMentor service can be very useful.

Do you think that Rev Mentor is worth the monthly fee?

The monthly fee, while not inexpensive, seems very reasonable based on the value of knowledge conveyed. It would cost much more to attend a Revolution specific course in some far-removed city. This way, I am able to work at my own pace, discover my own issues and get great direction from a master programmer.

Thanks Doug, and good luck with that program when you get back to working on it!

The Busy Architect: Mark Srebnik

Tell me a little about yourself, what kind of programming are you into?

I'm a licensed architect and urban designer for many years. Have designed all types of buildings, master planned campuses, worked with communities to design the future of their cities, and have taught architecture and urban design at the university level in the past.

So, as you can tell by now I'm not a software programmer, just a 'building programmer'.

(FWIW, there actually is an architectural phase called 'programming', where you determine the size and quantity of what elements need to be part of the building design and what their relationships to one another are).

So, now to answer your question...I've been interested in learning to program for some years now.

I became intrigued by computers in the mid 80’s after moving to Silicon Valley and working for an architecture firm that used Mac SE’s. I was surrounded by techies and geeks. After using various CAD programs and being very disappointed in how they worked (opposite of how an architect works mostly), I got the urge to learn. I felt that much of what was available was either 'half baked' solutions or just didn't provide the type of tools that I wanted as an architect and designer.

About 10 years ago I had an opportunity to assist a software developer in Italy to provide feedback on their software and its documentation. Gave me a lot of insight into what makes a good piece of software vs what doesn't.

From there, I started reading books on C, C++, and BASIC and started to at least understand what it means to program, but didn't really get beyond that conceptual understanding. Primarily due to time constraints, given that I work full-time and don't have lots of free time for other things.

How long have you been using Revolution?

Tried Rev demo very briefly last year and then again just recently with the release of 3.0. I've taken the plunge a week ago and purchased Revolution Enterprise! RunRev's new pricing policy did the trick... ;-)

My thought is to be able to use small bits of time here and there to practice....at home on my MacBook running OSX and during the day when I have a break on my little Fujitsu P1610 convertible tabletPC running Vista Business/Ubuntu. So, now I can practice/test apps on all 3 OS's if I want...maximum flexibility.
 
How easy/difficult did you find it to get into?

Well, still getting into to it...have a ways to go!

Currently, wading my way through tutorials, reading items/watching videos in the Resource Center, and watching an expert like Jerry Daniels in videos on his Rev Mentor site.

I'm finding that it's fairly easy to grasp the basic concepts, that's what attracted me to Rev over other environments/languages especially given my limited time for this. Realized that the odds were not good of my ever mastering other languages such as C++, while I think it's possible for me to at least get proficient with Rev, if I stick with it for some period of time on a regular basis.

Where did you hear about Rev Mentor?

From Jerry Daniels himself.

I emailed several people that I saw listed on the Rev site asking them for some advice on getting started and potential remote training possibilities. Several people responded, all very helpful btw, as I find with everyone that I come into contact with so far in the Rev community.

Jerry gave me some advice and asked if I'd seen the Rev Mentor site as he thought it might provide a lot of what I was looking for as a Rev noob.

How long have you been using it?

I've been using Rev Mentor for two weeks now.

What exactly have you been using it for, and how does it help?

I've used it for several purposes so far; to gain a better understanding of how Rev works, what its potentials are, and some examples of how you can actually apply Rev to provide a solution to specific software needs.

For a code noob like me that can't afford the time to take a programming class, Jerry's site provides the sense of having a tutor/mentor/Rev Support Library available whenever you want, 24/7, to support one's self-learning journey.

Also, watching Jerry's videos makes me feel like I am in a Rev class and brings learning Rev to life versus just reading 'dry text' about various code functions, definitions, etc. I find that after watching some of his videos I feel much more motivated and excited about trying out some things in Rev.

One of Jerry's series of videos shows you how Rev can help you provide database type info to a user where the data can reside virtually anywhere other than the user's computer itself.

Another set of videos gives a great overview of the distinctions between interface design and workflow and why it's so important in designing an app not to confuse the two or only pay attention to one and not the other.

Do you think this site might be useful for other people? How so?

Rev Mentor is extremely helpful for code noobs like me as I've described above. However, I can see that it can be very useful for 'Revsters' or 'Reverati' or 'Revolutionistas' [not sure the proper term for Rev users.. ;-) ]* who are more advanced than I am as they would be able to grasp and appreciate some of the 'coding details' that Jerry goes over, while I sometimes don't get all of it, just the basic concepts discussed.

Do you think that Rev Mentor is worth the monthly fee?

Absolutely, for less than the price of one music CD or a large pizza, you get a whole month’s access to all the Rev Mentors site’s content. It’s available to you 24/7 online, so, you can use it whenever it’s convenient for you and as often as you like.

Just having access to a Rev expert like Jerry through his videos feels like the equivalent to hiring Jerry or some other Rev expert as a tutor, where if you did that, just buying one hour of time, would cost you almost 8 times as much as the monthly fee!

So, to me this is a real bargain. I just hope that Jerry doesn’t read this and get the idea to raise the fee!.... ;-)

Thanks Mark, for sharing your experiences with us, and welcome to the Revolution community!

*That would be Revolutionaries, right folks?

The Experienced Programmer: Obleo Beck

Tell me a little about yourself, what kind of programming are you into?

I am a person that makes a living using computers. I recall the late 1970's and early 1980's getting exposed to computers at a young age. Those machines back then did not come with software. If you wanted to use them you programmed it, to do something. That experience has lived with me my whole life.

During the 1990's I worked by day as an advertising photographer and by night building web sites, little programs (then Hypercard) and making multimedia on a client to client basis.

I found that programing was more profitable and switched to developing games full time in 2001. I have worked for a number of game studios along the way, using a number of different code languages and IDE's.

Over the last few years I been making another transition from game development to software development. I have been building custom solutions on a client to client basis. And still now and then do work in the game industry. I have also been giving the whole shareware thing a whirl for a while but recently sold that company and its product line so I could focus on other things.

How long have you been using Revolution?

I found a version of Revolution Version 1.0 on one of my machines :). It had to be a demo copy I downloaded years back. I took a serious Interest in Revolution in 2004 when a good friend showed me a version of Revolution. I used to visit him and sit at his machine playing around with Revolution until I convinced myself to buy a license around either 2005 or 2006.

How easy/difficult did you find it to get into?

Well Revolution is much like HyperCard and I used HyperCard for over 10 years. There were still many differences so I looked at every stack I could find and tore them apart looking at how that was done. Watched all the videos, read every thing I could find and built little prototype projects teaching myself something new.

As a whole it is pretty simple to learn the Revolution way because most of its user base leave their egos at the door. I still thank people like Klaus Major and Malte Brill for the early help on a rev forum that gave me a little push into the right direction. That help from those two sold me on the Revolution product line big time. Most development tools' user base is nowhere near as helpful as the community that uses Revolution. I feel I need to pay forward in the same way.

Where did you hear about Rev Mentor?

The Rev Newsletter. I wish this thing would come out weekly. (Thanks Obleo! Glad you enjoy it, but I don't think we could manage weekly...)

How long have you been using it?

Only a few days, and already it has become a great source of knowledge.

What exactly have you been using it for, and how does it help?

I read and follow anything related to this industry simply because I may learn something new, and make me better at what I can do.

One look at the "Being Binary" lecture by Jerry sold me. That showed how I could script more proficiently than the way I was doing it up to this point. I figured $10 a month is worth a great tip like this and I want to tap into the knowledge and experience that Jerry brings to the table.

I was not able to make it to RevLive '08 for family reasons and I saw another video screen cast on "Screen Scraping" from RevLive. It actually solved a problem I had on a project I am currently working on. How to get data off a web page and get it into Revolution when I did not have access to the company server. (This even with that company paying me to develop a solution for them.) Amazing, I had this problem and here was a solution on the Rev Mentor site solving it. Talk about great timing.

Do you think this site might be useful for other people? How so?

Yes.

You can learn something new each day. No matter how much experience you already have, other people have different experiences. That brings different ideas and knowledge to the table, and feeds the brain. I would not think anyone would reject learning something new!

Rev Mentor also presents most of this info in video screen casts. It visually shows you how to do something. I am a visual person so it helps me pay attention better than some text on a page. This site is also updated very often, so there is new content all the time. Unlike a book this content is and can be updated as this industry changes, which is a good thing, because this industry changes on a daily basis.

Do you think that Rev Mentor is worth the monthly fee?

I was shocked by how low this price was. I personally looked into doing something similar for game design. It cost so much time and money to put something like this together, with updating content often. I am amazed they are not charging more.

From a consumer point of view, this is lunch money. Trade a day going out to lunch for a month of learning.

Thank you very much for that perspective Obleo.

If you are thinking of signing up for Rev Mentor, you might be interested to know what Jerry has planned for the next couple of months. Over October/November:

Jerry will moderate a panel discussion with two popular, long-time Revolution developers over two schools of thought surrounding naming conventions for variables, handlers and objects.

He will also have a panel discussion on whether or not to declare all variables - the advantages and disadvantages of both approaches.

Upcoming lessons:
- Writing a parser to convert all variable names to follow a certain naming convention.
- Validating data entry without punishing users.

A three part lecture series: The Art of Embedding Records in a List.

New material is posted regularly to the site each week, so subscribers can view the following:

- The Top Ten topics, authors, and terms posted to the Rev email list and forums. This is shown in graphs with video commentary.
- Questions and answers from the Rev Mentor Mailbag
- Two-three videos every week. The weekly videos may be lessons, lectures, interviews, or commentaries.