Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!rex!mandel@vax.anes.tulane.edu
From: mandel@vax.anes.tulane.edu (Jeff E Mandel MD MS)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard
Subject: Re: Hypercard 2.0
Message-ID: <5582@rex.cs.tulane.edu>
Date: 7 Jan 91 21:39:26 GMT
References: <12208@pucc.Princeton.EDU>
Sender: news@rex.cs.tulane.edu
Organization: Tulane University School of Medicine
Lines: 36

In article <12208@pucc.Princeton.EDU> EGNILGES@pucc.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges)
writes:
>It's pretty arrogant to convert a pre-2.0 stack to 2.0 format, such
>that the stack CANNOT be used with an older version of Hypercard and
>without any backup.  It assumes that the user wants to use Hypercard
>2.0, which is slower and which (it appears) behaves differently with
>stacks that work under older versions.  This may very well be the case.
>However, by converting the stack without backup, you've taken control
>out of the user's hands.  This isn't like the Apple Computer I know...
>it's more like IBM.
>
>Perhaps I am missing something.  Perhaps a backup is created a la
>Kermit.  With respect to 2.0, I am a neophyte, and if any of you
>honchos want to set me straight please feel free.  But right now
>I'm pissed (angry pissed, not squiffled pissed.)
>
HyperCard 2.0 slower? Not with my stack (400K of scripts and XCMDs and growing
daily).
With regard to the lack of backup, I would prefer an option to save a copy
prior to conversion, but I have learned to live with it. If it bothers you, you
can always install a handler in your home stack to catch doMenu, and if the
message is "Convert Stack" first send doMenu "Save a copy..." to HyperCard.
That's the nice thing about HyperCard; you can patch aspects of its behavior
that offend you.
So to sum up, yes, you are missing something.

Jeff E Mandel MD MS
Asst. Professor of Anesthesiology
Tulane University School of Medicine
New Orleans, LA

Disclaimer: "Anyone who would let an anesthesiologist teach them HyperCard
programming should be equally willing to let a Hypercard programmer give them
an anesthetic"

P.S. My editor murdered the source listing in my last posting. Sorry.