Thus, it seems, the questions we raised in the introduction to this chapter have found some answer. Did INDIE serve authors' needs? Yes, in the sense that several large GBSes were built with it that mostly conformed to authors' expectations. How easy was it for non-programmer authors to understand and use the tool? It took a few days or weeks to get started, but they continued to learn about the tool throughout their development cycle. Was INDIE effective? Generally, yes, authors built applications students enjoyed and without paying the cost of a programmer.
In the next chapter, we will examine other systems that are related to
INDIE, and in the final chapter we will look both at how INDIE
measured up to the attributes laid out in Chapter 3 and at areas of
future research.