Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!oakhill!tomj
From: tomj@oakhill.UUCP (Tom Johnson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard
Subject: Re: Setting userLevel at openStack time & flame
Message-ID: <3048@oakhill.UUCP>
Date: 5 Mar 90 20:41:29 GMT
References: <48201@cc.utah.edu>
Reply-To: tomj@oakhill.UUCP (Tom Johnson)
Organization: Motorola Inc., Austin, Texas
Lines: 57

In article <48201@cc.utah.edu> KOFOID@cc.utah.edu writes:
>Tom Johnson writes: 
>>[...]
>>Here's the scenario: [...] I decide to set the userLevel to 2 at openStack
>>time. [etc...He wants to protect the stack from change by naive students.]
>
>    ...and of course got a typically snotty answer from an Apple rep, who never
>bothered to tell him how to do what he wants to do. So, Tom, here's how you do
>it. Put the following in your stack scripts:
>...

First, thanks for the solution.  It now seems clear as to WHY hypercard
was doing what it was doing.

>However, if people wish to treat HC as a development system, hiding the inner
>workings of a stack, I see no problem. As far as I'm concerned, it's absolutely
>the same as writing a program and distributing the binary file, for whatever
>reason. 
>...

Next, although I didn't specifically state this in my original posting, the
REASON I want to put some special password protection on the stack is that
the stack will be shared by MANY people, some of whom have some familiarity with
Hypercard, but ALL of whom are engineering types that love to tinker.  Thus,
to make sure that this business-oriented stack continiues to perform its
purpose, it is necessary to add additional protection against unwanted
changing of the scripts.  It may, therefore, be looked at as an application,
nothing more, nothing less.  In the interest of saving ntework bandwith, I
didn't feel it necessary to explain all of this up front.  Additionally,
the statement "pristine scripts" was meant to be taken with tongue firmly
implanted in cheek.  I am realtively thick-skinned, and flames don't usually
scorch me much, so I took the original reply with good nature.  It's nice to
know that the entire UseNet community, however, doesn't share the view that
just because company "A" doesn't like what your doing then it shouldn't be
done!  Sometimes there are good reasons for "tricky" programming (e.g.
QuickDr?w from a company to remain unnamed).

>...                                                         Embarrassing
>some poor soul because he or she isn't quite as clever as a professional
>programmer isn't the point of this newsgroup.
>
>    Cheers,
>        Eric.

It just so happens that I AM a professional programmer (C, Pascal, Fortran,
68xxx assembly, etc), but don't have much experience with Hypercard (which
I find has a definite flavor of COBOL...yuch!).  Rather than spend several
days wandering through my library of Hypercard reference books, I thought I
might get a quicker answer from the net.

Thanks for coming to the rescue, Eric, and once again, its is nice to know
that there are people out there willing to forego destructive criticism
for constructive criticism.

Tom Johnson  (tomj@oakhill.UUCP)

Standard Disclaimer applies.