Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!mailrus!iuvax!bsu-cs!mithomas From: mithomas@bsu-cs.UUCP (Michael Thomas Niehaus) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard Subject: ComputerWorld article on HyperCard... Message-ID: <5966@bsu-cs.UUCP> Date: 28 Feb 89 23:11:49 GMT Organization: CS Dept, Ball St U, Muncie, Indiana Lines: 35 Has anyone read yesterday's (2-27-89) issue of ComputerWorld? Towards the back of the issue, they have over a half page article consisting of a critique of HyperCard. And I thought that they only criticized Apple's pricing policies... Basically, they complained that HyperCard was not powerful enough to do serious computer-based instruction work; it is suited best to simple guided tours. It does not have the database functionality necessary to make it fall into the database category (like search and replace capabilities, as was their example). It does not allow you to, say, click on a word and bring up a definition card without having to set up a button for each occurrance of the word. And so on... But they didn't recommend any improvements. It struck me as another "It would be nice if..." article. And I thought that they just picked on the little guys like Ashton-Tate and Lotus... Anyway, does anyone see these comments as valid? I agree in principle that HyperCard could have many more features, but I think their criticisms are a little harsh. They did argue that HyperCard's functionality can be expanded using XCMDs, but they made it sound like that was a liability; the program needed to have those features built-in (they probably have 4MB machines, too). So, what does everyone see the new version 2.0 doing to calm these complaints? What would you like to see? Send me your responses. I will summarize and post it to the net. -Michael Niehaus -- Michael Niehaus UUCP: !{iuvax,pur-ee}!bsu-cs!mithomas Apple Student Rep ARPA: mithomas@bsu-cs.bsu.edu Ball State University AppleLink: ST0374 (from UUCP: st0374@applelink.apple.com)