Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!apple!dan
From: dan@Apple.COM (Dan Allen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard
Subject: Re: What to do about > 32K of data?
Message-ID: <28039@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 29 Mar 89 19:05:17 GMT
References: <938@Portia.Stanford.EDU> <10520021@hpfcdc.HP.COM> <27803@apple.Apple.COM> <807@mtxinu.UUCP>
Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA
Lines: 42

In article <807@mtxinu.UUCP> alan@mtxinu.COM (Alan Tobey) writes:
>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," and the fact that is IMPLEMENTED as a hypertext system is often
>incidental.  Without HyperCard, there's NO WAY I could have produced any
>of the dozens of personal Mac applications that I and my company use every
>day.  Some of these applications USE the hypertext "features" (as I'd
>prefer to describe them), some don't.  To FORCE HyperCard into being
>ONLY a "hypertext application" is to ignore that it does some OTHER


Good point.  HyperCard in its original form (WildCard) had no
programming language in it.  It was strictly a fast text browser.  Bill
used Switcher and MacPaint to do the graphics, and then he said, "What
the heck" and put in the paint tools.  Then a little later someone
wanted it to print, so they put in (minimal) printing.  Finally someone
said, "Hey, put a language into it" and thus HyperTalk was added in the
final 9 months.

Now we find that many people are using it as a programming language
rather like MacApp was going to be.  With this new insight we are
rethinking things and some future unnumbered version of HyperCard or
HyperCard replacement (years from now pie in the sky kind of thing) may
be more of a programming environment with the other things added as
icing on the cake.

Thanks for the input.


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** Dan Allen             **   dan@apple.COM (Unix mail)  **
** Software Explorer     **   ALLEN.DAN (AppleLink)      **
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