Director 8.5 Shockwave Studio

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant but doesn't play well with others
Review: Director is a powerful bit of software but I have a few complaints:
1. It will make your entire system run slower - even when it isn't open. This ugly bear of a program works at a very low level in your software and can make applications like MS outlook malfunction or run so slowly you'll think they're not working.

Of course if you have a machine to dedicate to developing your director projects, this is not a problem. This was the solution I came by to use it on projects that required shockwave for work. But if your computer is the one stop workhorse of your business, maybe this isn't the best thing to do to it.
(I have run Director on Windows XP, 2000 and 98 and found the same performance problems - but least problematic on Win 2000 - the macintosh version may not have the same problem.)

2. Lingo is a bizarre language to learn. Lingo is the scripting language you must use to unlock the full power of Director. But for anyone familiar with other programming/scripting languages like C++ javascript, or Macromedia's Actionscript for Flash MX will find the mixed syntax confusing and hard to learn.

If this is the only language you ever plan to learn, then go ahead, do it. But frankly with a similar investment of time and energy ou could teach yourself C++ or Java and create the same sort of projects you could in Director - plus many many more- and you multiuser projects could run on UNIX Servers.

In short, for most projects that people create in Shockwave, I would recommend doing them in Macromedia's excellent Flash MX. For more elaborate projects, do them in c++ or Java.

Until Director tosses away the last of it's old stage metaphor lingo and replaces it with true object oriented programming it will remain an aging dinosaur losing ground against newer programs and technologies.

Rating:
Summary: Cool!
Review: ha! another great piece of work from the nationally acclaimed company of macromedia! It rocks! a little bit expensive, but very much worth it! you can do ANYTHING!!!!!

Rating:
Summary: Easy yet powerful
Review: I used the previous incarnation of Director when it was still on the Amiga (a very very long time ago) and recently, for a new job, I began to work with it as it has been rebuilt now. I was surprised that it was just as easy to use as before, but it was still deep enough that you could really get into it and get some truly amazing and powerful results from it. I would reccomend it to any developer, despite the high pricetag its much more than worth it for the use you will definately get out of it.

Rating:
Summary: Software you can create anything.
Review: This is probably the best software in the world, for one reason only. You can easily create other multimedia software with it. Games for kids, adults, presentations for the boss, greeting cards, web based applications. The user interface is a bit difficult to get used to because it has its own programming language. You can click and drag, AVIs, MPGs, JPGs, GIFs, WAVs or any other file to create whatever you want with it. The big downfall about this software is that Macromedia comes out with a different version of the Shockwave studio once every three months! So you could pay for this, then another will come out!