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From: ns@CAT.CMU.EDU (Nicholas Spies)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Advice for starting programmers...
Message-ID: <1044@PT.CS.CMU.EDU>
Date: 5 Mar 88 08:28:51 GMT
References: <42507@sun.uucp> <23091@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <42814@sun.uucp> <940@PT.CS.CMU.EDU> <526@psu-cs.UUCP>
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Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
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>... it includes resource loading and generation, full support for icons,
>buttons, radio buttons, check boxes, scroll bars, list boxes, static and
>editable text (with different fonts), menu creation, and the creation of
>dialog-boxes, alerts, and windows.  You can link buttons or menus to cause
>other windows or dialogs to appear.  You can simulate your program at any
>point to look at it our how it works.  It requires no typing (no programming),
>only pointing and clicking.

Prototyper sounds interesting, but reading between the lines seems to suggest
that it is for developing a _simulated_ program (for developing a user
interface) rather than for building reasonably fast applications in 
Prototyper itself. Is this the case? Can you, for instance, use the serial
ports in Prototyper? Could you write a videodisc driver in Prototyper and test
it interactively? It's easy in Forth :-).

User interface programming needs all the help it can get on the Mac, and
Prototyper may do a wonderful job of it, but this is no way detracts from
the value of coding interactively in Forth, either. Programming wouldn't 
be nearly as much fun if it didn't involve these deep religious issues!

-- 
Nicholas Spies			ns@cat.cmu.edu.arpa
Center for Design of Educational Computing
Carnegie Mellon University