[This is the original landing page and is outdated. xtalk in runrev is now renamed as livecode and you can indeed write iphone apps. The web browser plug-in never really caught on, and with html5 and ajax probably isn't needed anyway.]
The majority of programs are one off miracle cures. They are hopefully small, probably ugly, and very useful at the moment. Then they go into the recycle bin. Or trash, or the black hole if you go back that far.
Some of those utilities or prototypes get the designation of "interim solution." Most of the interim solutions I've built have never been replaced.
Revolution is a great tool for building prototypes. Because the keepers of the keys are building a web plugin I think there's a chance that we'll see a resurgence of sharing of these one hit wonders not seen since HyperCard. Unless they screw up the security model.
The plugin will be a sort of network enabled Home Stack, and most of the stacks will be less than twenty lines of code. If you ever programmed in (g)awk you'll appreciate that brevity. Not that xtalk is anything like awk, except useful in the right hands.
Because xtalk is easy to get started with some people get sucked in before they realize that they've gone from a simple command structure (go here, do that, etc.) to private functions, multi-dimensional arrays and something that was supposed to be simple "scripting" but sort of looks like programming after all. Maybe that will encourage some people who never considered programming to do just that.
This isn't a tool to build iPhone apps. It's a tool that makes it possible for normal people to easily start crafting programs to do things the way they want to do them. I think that's in the spirit of the creators of HyperCard and HyperTalk.