Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!walt.cc.utexas.edu!nghiem
From: nghiem@walt.cc.utexas.edu (Alex Nghiem)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: What Apple is trying to tell us....
Message-ID: <27999@ut-emx.UUCP>
Date: 11 Apr 90 02:55:53 GMT
References: <24828@<1990Apr4> <126900197@p.cs.uiuc.edu> <27866@ut-emx.UUCP> <258@puma.ge.com>
Sender: news@ut-emx.UUCP
Reply-To: nghiem@walt.cc.utexas.edu (Alex Nghiem)
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas
Lines: 62

In article <258@puma.ge.com> jnixon@andrew.ATL.GE.COM (John F Nixon) writes:
>nghiem@walt.cc.utexas.edu (Alex Nghiem) writes:
>
>>I found the book [Complete Hypercard] to be really useful. ...
>>Of course, if you do not take the
>>time to comprehend what you read or if you have limited programming
>>ability, this book would not mean anything to you.
>
>Hummm, it sounds like CH is a technical treatment of Hypercard, but later
>we read
>
>>But the
>>Apple Book fills in technical holes that the Complete Hypertalk (sic) 
>>reference was not intended to address.
>
>I am curious as to what you believe CH to be; is it a technical book on
>Hypercard, or is it an introductory reference?  It seems much too thick to
>be a useful introduction, but you seem to imply that it does not contain
>complete technical details.  I would hate to buy CH, and then find I need
>other reference material (especially in a book that calls itself Complete).

No, its not easy reading introductory reference, nor is it a complete technical
reference manual. It is rather useful for a programmer who has never used
Hypercard before and suddenly finds that he needs to bring up a Hypercard
application in a short amount of time. We have the Complete Hypercard
Book (Expanded Second Edition) and it appears to be the most
used Hypercard book in our lab, judging by the large amount of
creases in the spine. I do not know anything about the first edition.

You are correct about the title. It is not
"complete" in the sense you want. I do not believe I have ever
found a book to be 100% complete. I always cross-reference between
several texts. (Inside Macintosh for example is definitely not 100%
complete) In our lab, we also have Hypertalk Programming (same
publisher as Macintosh Revealed) and the Apple Hypercard Script Users
Guide. Hypertalk Programming has a nice poster of Hypertalk syntax
which I've posted on a wall. The Apple Script Users guide does not
appear to be used much, but it is really handy to have because it
is Apple's "definitive" description of Hypertalk. Neither the Complete
Hypertalk Book nor the Hypertalk Programming has the technical details
of the Apple Script User's Guide. Both the Complete Hypercard Book
and Hypertalk Programming list the Apple Script User's Guide as
a reference (I believe that is all it is meant to be.)

When we purchased these texts about a year ago, these appeared
to be the best texts we could get in a hurry. In fact, I
remember we were lucky because I believe we bought the last copy  
of the Complete Hypercard at the bookstore. We had to wait
for the Apple Script Users Guide. 

Now, there must be several books on Hypercard at the bookstore that 
the general user can find useful.

nghiem@walt.cc.utexas.edu
!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!walt!nghiem





nghiem@walt.cc.utexas.edu
!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!walt!nghiem