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At one time, computer programming was slow, painstaking work, requiring substantial training to do it at all. As Graphical User Interface (GUI) computers gained popularity (since the late 1980s), a host of innovative High-Level Development (HLD) tools emerged. Professional developers have seen development effort reduced to anywhere from half to as little as one sixtieth of what traditional tools require, saving significant cost and effort³. Changes to an application’s interface or functionality are possible at almost any stage of development, an impossibility with traditional tools using C or C++. Finally, people who never thought of themselves as programmers have been able to develop professional applications.

HLD tools comes in a variety of shapes and sizes, but generally they offer:

1. A simple language⁴ with access to powerful commonly used functionalities. These tools live and die by their syntax and built-in functions. A cryptic syntax hurts developer efficiency. Lack of a needed functionality can remove a tool from consideration for a project.
2. An interpreted or dynamically compiled language, shortening the traditional code-compile-run-test cycle of development to the much faster code-run-test.
3. A Graphical User Interface (GUI) design environment, allowing the developer to lay out an application’s interface elements as if in a drawing program⁵. For some projects, as much as eighty percent of the development effort is interface creation — GUI development tools slash that percentage.
4. Automatic delivery of applications to multiple computer operating systems.

There are many environments available. Each has a different set of capabilities based on the market it targets. Common uses/features include:

• File processing, requiring strong text handling capabilities
• Graphics/multimedia-based applications
• Database front-end development
• Front-end development coordinating other applications
• Web-aware applications
• CGI for web servers
• General cross-platform application/utility development

This white paper will compare two new HLD tools: REALbasic, from REAL Software, Inc.; and Revolution, from Runtime Revolution Ltd. In evaluating HLD tools for a particular task or goal, it’s important to determine what capabilities are necessary, and then judge the candidates based on that. In order to be of the broadest use, this white paper will make a general comparison between Revolution and REALbasic rather than focusing on suitability for a particular purpose.