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Since the late 1980’s, many high-level development environments have splashed onto the scene, each claiming to be the easiest, fastest, and best way to create an application. Many of them have been short-lived. Notable examples are HyperCard⁶ , Perl⁷ , Visual Basic⁸ , and Java⁹ .

HyperCard was first among these, and was in many ways an inspiration for a number of other environments, including Visual Basic.

By being the foundation of many interactive web sites, Perl really drove home the fact that a scripting language could be used to create powerful applications; however, it has no built-in interface toolkit.

Visual Basic built the corporate market for Windows applications developed with HLD tools, and continues to dominate on that platform.

Java popularized the “write once, run anywhere” concept of being able to develop an application on one platform and distribute the results to other hardware and operating systems.

Today, HyperCard languishes, nearly abandoned by Apple. Perl still has no native interface toolkit. Visual Basic dominates on Windows but isn’t available for any other platform. Java’s promise is often characterized as “write once, debug everywhere.”¹⁰ (Both Visual Basic and Java are potentially threatened by Microsoft’s C#.)

So where does that leave the cross-platform HLD market? Ready for a truly easy to use, up to date, completely cross-platform tool, which is exactly what REALbasic and Revolution both claim to be.