compileIt for revolution?

[Rob Cozens]

Richard, et al:

>So instead CompileIt! had its own unique syntax and hundreds of symbols 
>one could use to implement things that were algorithmically very much like 
>one would do in Pascal or C. Of course this required a whole other level 
>of knowledge, and for those symbols related to the Mac Toolbox it also 
>required the dozen-volume set of Inside Mac books, and/or the more 
>efficient Think Library (which came with Think C)

Are you talking about the same CompileIt! (Rev 2.6.1) I used for 
years?  There was very little difference between HyperTalk and CompileIt! 
syntax, except for things HyperTalk didn't support: variable typing, record 
structures, system call "glue".

My experience is that it is easily an order of magnitude more efficient to 
write externals in CompileIt! than C or Pascal--and I have professional 
experience programming in both other languages.  If you are programming Mac 
Toolbox calls, you _will_ have to consult Inside Macintosh regardless of of 
the language you use.  But one doesn't have to consult a dozen volumes 
unless one is implementing _all_ Toolbox calls.  If I want to tap into Mac 
Program-to-Program Communications, for example, I need one volume: 
Interprocess Communication.

Finally, CompileIt! does not have hundreds of symbols to complete its 
function...it includes hundreds of symbols that are _already_ defined in 
Inside Macintosh.  If you're programming in another language, you will have 
to define the same symbols in an include file.

I'm really sorry your experience with CompileIt! was such that you didn't 
get it.

Rob Cozens, Staff Conservator
Mendonoma Marine Life Conservancy

"Every so often something strange happens on a stretch of Gulf coast 
shoreline.  Fish, crabs, and shrimp all but throw themselves into the arms, 
baskets, and hand nets of people wading in the beach surf...  In a few 
hours a single person can collect a hundred pounds of shrimp... Gulf folks 
call it a ''jubilee.''  The reality, at least for the sea's creatures, is 
less jubilant.  They aren't presenting themselves as gifts to man but 
trying desperately to escape suffocation."

  -- Ocean's End