Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ukma!rutgers!att!pegasus!ech
From: ech@pegasus.ATT.COM (Edward C Horvath)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard
Subject: Re: What to do about > 32K of data?
Message-ID: <2726@pegasus.ATT.COM>
Date: 28 Mar 89 04:45:05 GMT
References: <807@mtxinu.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T ISL Middletown NJ USA
Lines: 28

Dan Allen wrote,
> What I meant to get across is that different types of applications have
> different data models and are useful for different things...HyperCard
> is not a word processor or a database...

From article <807@mtxinu.UUCP>, by alan@mtxinu.COM (Alan Tobey):
> Dan, I'm  sure that for YOU, and for the other developers of HyperCard,
> "Hypercard is a hypertext application" is correct and complete.  But
> for some of us that's a pretty narrow view.  For some of us, for
> example, HyperCard is PRIMARILY "Macintosh programming for the rest
> of us,"...

But that does not place any requirement on Dan or the rest of the HC dev
team to try to satisfy all your program development needs.  In particular,
the XFCN/XCMD escapes allow third parties to add lots of of functionality to
your front ends, as Oracle has done with their database.  You may have to
learn SQL as well as HyperTalk, but there's good reason to expect that
any effort to make HT a "real" database language would add comparable
complexity which we ALL pay for.  "The rest of us" don't need to have
Apple spend its resources reinventing the database when Oracle already
has the expertise, inclination, and a shipping product.  Acius and others
are following suit if you have some religious objection to Oracle (hi, Mike!).

So be creative: the HyperCard platform, third-party back-ends, and your
own customized front-ends comprise an environment of extraordinary power
and flexibility.  All three components have a role to play.

=Ned Horvath=