Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!SIERRA.BERKELEY.EDU!siegman
From: siegman@SIERRA.BERKELEY.EDU ("Anthony E. Siegman")
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Easy to Learn Mac Programming Environment
Message-ID: <8805240408.AA01675@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 24 May 88 04:04:48 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Lines: 85

This is one of those messages that will get me laughed at by ``real
programmers'', but what the hell . . .

There's continuing discussion of the best programming environment for
developing Macintosh applications, with MPW among the most widely favored for
obvious reasons.

What I want to point out here are the substantial, and largely unrecognized,
advantages in terms of
     --utility
     --simplicity
     --and most especially, speed of learning
of using Microsoft BASIC (!) as a programming environment for developing real
and genuinely ``Mac-ish'' (though maybe not too complex) applications for the
Macintosh.

To start with, for those of you who haven't looked at a modern BASIC lately,
MS BASIC has
  --no line numbers
  --unlimited length variable names and labels (at no cost in speed)
  --all the standard structured programming constructs
  --interpreter or compiler from the same source
  --subprograms with local variables and parameter lists (in and out) 
  --pretty nice built-in editor
  --easy screen graphics
and so on.  You still have to be careful about variable types, and remember
that all variables are global in the main program;  but your program design
can be as structured as you want to it to be (and a lot easier to read than
any other language).

Beyond that, all of the following Macintosh interface capabilities are
directly and easily available as built-in commands from within basic BASIC:
  --Windows     (4 types, 4 levels)
  --Menus         (full capabilities)
  --Mouse         (full capabilities)
  --Buttons      (all types)
  --Edit fields
  --SFGetFile     (for opening or saving files)
  --A very large fraction of QuickDraw capabilities 
  --Numerous Mac ROM routines
  --Clipboard access, in and out, text or pictures
  --Event driven programming (using trapping or polling), for Timer, 
      Mouse, Menu, or Dialog events.
In brief, you can make a BASIC program that looks every bit as Mac-ish as you
like -- and compile it immediately into a free-standing clickable
application.  

Beyond this, once you learn a little about resources and how to duplicate or
create them using REdit or ResEdit, by calling  a set of very easy to use and
syntactically very readable ``ToolLib'' library calls, which come packaged
with BASIC, you can very simply create, access and use a very large set of
Mac resources and Toolbox capabilities, including
    Arrays   Clipping    Alerts   Modal Dialogs   Graphics   Icons   
    Menus   Mouse commands   Patterns   Pictures   Points   Polygons   
    Regions   Resource Files   Scrolling   Strings   Text   Windows
In each of these cases, the Toollib calls look very much like the
corresponding Toolbox calls in ``Inside Macintosh'', but most of these
capabilities can simply be used;  nearly all of the initialization and clean
up hassles are largely avoided.  Essentially every aspect of the official Mac
interface is available in this way, along with callable library interfaces to
VideoWorks and other programs.

And again, when you're finished you can have a self-contained clickable
application, with its own resources, icon, ``About'' box, and so on.

The canonical statement heard from real Mac programmers seems to be something
like , ``I spent 9 months reading all 5 volumes of Inside Macintosh, and
struggling with MPW;  finally I got the picture and could start doing
things.''  My experience with a class I'm teaching right now is that
interested undergrads with ``high-school BASIC'' backgrounds can start
producing simple but real Mac applications within a few _weeks_ of beginning
programming on the Mac.

I'm not saying that I or anyone else would want to write a multi-featured
paint program or text editor or something similarly sophisticated in MS
BASIC.  But if you're a scientist,  or engineer, or high-school teacher or an
amateur prgrammer in any field, who has other responsibilities in life
besides Mac programming; and if you'd like to write a real Mac application
with a real Macintosh interface for your class or your job or your personal
use, doing it in MS BASIC is the only sensible choice I'm aware of.  You can
spend months to become capable in MPW -- or weeks with BASIC.

Finally, might just note that it's our experience -- don't want to push this
claim too hard, however -- that a compiled BASIC number crunching program (a
big simplex program, for example, or an FFT) runs every bit as fast in
compiled BASIC as the same program in any of the standard Pascals.