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My point though is that a project with some of the same goals of HyperCard should be possible. Also, my 7 working days means seven 8 hour working days, which of course for those of us with real jobs, turns out to be a bit more like several months. It could be done, if you have the cash and want it I will lead the team and believe me, you'll be surprised. As an example, with a language that I am familiar with (Delphi or VB) I could crank out a form designer in a day, and hook it to a database backend in another day.
Back to the point, a UI can make up for the usability of the xTalk. I'd say though that, really, xTalks aren't even that easy to learn. They are deceptive in that they look a lot like English, but they are much more restrictive in reality. Providing an outline based scripting language with a bit of the "Function => The 'symbol' of 'symbol'" syntax would make up for those things where xTalk is a bit nicer to read. I would argue however that the deceptive nature of xTalks makes them in the long run bad for a project: a user will become frustrated quickly. It is in my opinion better to provide a very simple set of rules within which the user is told to play, they will know more readily what is possible without trying to rephrase what they want in a tortured form of English.
xTalk per say is not what makes HyperCard different than Visual Basic et. al. What makes HyperCard different is that it is a simple database with a powerful authoring environment, coupled with some method of scripting.
Also, in your example, writing a line of code like that would be a very, very bad idea. It's totally unreadable and is not self documenting. Why support that kind of code?
To sum it up, the goals for a project I'd be involved in would be:
* User accessible
* UI / simple syntax blended scripting
* Very fast interface prototyping
* Fast database backend: backgrounds are tables (or close to them, perhaps an abstraction on top of the real tables)
* Same functionality on Mac and Windows (who cares what you use?)
This note has no doubt been disjointed, but I have to run to work, haven't had a good morning so far.
Isaac
-----Original Message-----On 5/21/06, Isaac Raway <isaac@...> wrote:
From: sphere_project@yahoogroups.com [mailto:sphere_project@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Jonathynne Bett'ncort
Sent: Monday, May 22, 2006 2:06 AM
To: sphere_project@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [sphere_project] WildFire/Sphere Project Archive
> This is all really too bad...
>
> But I have to just get something out because it's been bothering me
> for a long time...when I first heard of this project and tried to get
> involved, it all just seemed far too complicated. Focused a bit too
> much on theory and parsers and nonsense, instead of making a
> working package.
>
> A committed group of 5 people could have a working HyperCard
> clone in 7 working days. I know because in just a bit more time
> (maybe 3 weeks) I created a functional one on my own. The only
> thing it lacked was an xTalk but that isn't as critical as the
> environment (linking dialogs & simplified scripting UIs can provide
> the same benefits as xTalk but are easier to code).
I agree with you that without an xTalk, it wouldn't take too long to
create a HyperCard clone. I very much doubt it could be created in a
week, though. However, an xTalk is essential to a HyperCard clone;
it's what makes it different from Visual Basic, RealBasic, Interface
Builder, Revolution, etc. The xTalk is at least as critical as the
environment.
Also, you underestimate how complicated it is to parse HyperTalk, just
like we did before we started. As an example, this is completely valid
syntax:
add char word to char of word char of char to word word to char of
line char of cd fld word
You cannot make the parser simple and compatible with HyperTalk at the
same time. This was the big road block Tyler and I ran into.
--
Hasta la pasta,
Jonathynne Bett'ncort.
------------------------------------------------------------
I tried the real world once; didn't really care for it.
"I could counter with the fact that a disproportionate number of TG
women I know are computer programmers. ::grin:: In fact, there's a
joke going around that says exposure to computer screens causes
transsexuality." -- Kate Bornstein
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