Flowstone - Toy or Real Deal?

[MichaelBenjamin]

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[adamszabo]

It doesnt matter because you can make equally amateur looking, shitty, buggy software with C++ as well.

[deraudrl]

Context is very important here. Within a very narrow niche, the creation of software synthesizers, it certainly borders on being a "real deal" in the sense that it is certainly possible to create viable commercial VSTs using it. (Whether it's the best tool for a commercial VST developer is certainly debatable, and I have no opinion concerning its use as a home automation or robotics development platform.)

But in any wider sense, FS is certainly a toy, if for no other reason than that it's entirely too specialized to be a decent development environment outside of its niche. And face it, its main purpose in life is to create...toys. That's not a bad thing.

<putting on flame-proof suit, preparing to repel boarders >

[MichaelBenjamin]

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[MichaelBenjamin]

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[Spogg]

In my opinion it can be used as a toy to make toys, a bit like Lego.

But, continuing that analogy, in FS you can make the bricks too; in fact pretty much anything you want if you have the skills.

I prefer to think of FS as being a versatile box of tools each honed for specific usage. Changing analogies, a collection of woodworking tools can be used by a DIY amateur to make wonky shelves or by a professional cabinet maker to produce exhibition showpieces. Same tools.

I agree that getting more tools is always nice but in some ways it can be a more creative process to work within the confines of what we actually have. A fun challenge if you like.

I’m not sure about the “Real Deal” term. Is a set of tools to be judged by what is made with them? Surely that’s down to the craftsman far more than the tools.

[k brown]

And I'd say that your points are proven quite well by your own work with it.

[MichaelBenjamin]

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[deraudrl]

ok, with "Real Deal" i mostly had actual "excel-business" stuff in mind, like MicheleANE brought up.
as a real world example i imagine some business probably has some pretty huge excel tables somewhere with lots data in it, now that data needs to set in some other context, reordered, reassigned, reformatted, revisualised.

One can only wish that FS had an extension system as robust as Excel's, with multi-language OLE access to the full underlying data object model.

And no, it's not only Microsoft apps that can do that: Corel uses the same mechanism in its apps.

[MichaelBenjamin]

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