Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!jdevoto
From: jdevoto@Apple.COM (Jeanne A. E. DeVoto)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard
Subject: Re: HYPERCARD limitations, speed issue
Keywords: send, hypercard, not hypertext
Message-ID: <37876@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 16 Jan 90 23:27:16 GMT
References: <614@ascom.UUCP>
Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA
Lines: 47

In article <614@ascom.UUCP> rene@ascom.UUCP (Rene Bach) writes:
>I feel HC is not text based. I would expect a hypertext based system to allow
>easy cross referencing of FREE text. This issue doesn't appear to bother
>people.

You are correct: HyperCard is not a text-based hypertext platform, nor
was it intended to be (although you can develop a hypertext application
as a stack).

>I am surprised nobody (else I have missed it, in this case please ignore)
>has mentioned that send doesn't work with arguments (parameters) 
>(hypercard 1.2.2 and below). Am I correct or am I missing something ?
>I have tried: 
>  send message_name arg1,arg2 to card card_name and the message
>	doesn't get sent ???
>  send message_name to card  works.

What you're missing is that the argument to "send" must be a string
(or an expression that evaluates to a string). In other words, the
syntax of the send keyword looks like
   send <message> to <object>
The easiest way to make a multi-word expression into a string is to enclose
it in double quotes.

>Since the basic message passing routine fails, HC can't be a OOP language.

Uh, yeah.

>Selecting the drawing tool, then drag
>the pointer and change the tools selection doesn't seem to be a speedy
>interface (it looks like I can draw faster). I am implementing a sailing
>simulator and drawing boat courses and moving boat icons around. The speed
>issue makes me wonder whether I want to continue and simulate more than
>ONE boat.

Changing between tools is pretty slow, although it is considerably faster
in 1.2x than in previous versions. You may want to consider using card-
flipping techniques in addition to (or instead of) drawing on the screen;
if the animation you need to do is simple enough, flipping from card to
card is quite a bit faster than drawing.
-- 
====== jeanne a. e. devoto ========================================
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