compileIt for revolution?

[Jerry Daniels]

CompileIt! lovers and haters...

YESTERDAY

I would have to agree with Rob, here. I used CompileIt! to the point 
where I made a small C app that RAN externals only and I would get 
CompileIt! to compile into that app (called HyperApp). I then wrote a 
front end (in CompileIt!) to write and manage my code in. I've moved a 
great deal of my code management features from it into Constellation 
(www.daniels-mara.com/products).

The CompileIt! Xternal performance (if there weren't too many text call 
backs) was breath-taking. Tom Pittman created a great tool there. The 
early versions were slow to compile and frustrating, but the the last 
versions were killer and had a very good debugger.

Tom Pittman DID write CompileIt! in 68000 assembler using HyperTalk to 
do that! He was a purist indeed. I learned a tremendous amount about 
everyday coding using pointers, handles, bitwise math and bunches of 
goodies--all in my fav lingua, HyperTalk. As a tool, today it would be 
tremendously helpful.

TODAY

Doing CompileIt! today would be challenging in a multiplatform 
environs, because one of the great parts of CompileIt was its toolbox 
access. HOWEVER, HyperCard had its own toolbox, too. PERHAPS Rev has 
such a thing that we could call from externals and shield us from the 
individual API's for the varous platform. These HyperCard callbacks 
were binary callbacks with data-typed params, so they were every bit as 
fast as C or a OS toolbox call.

WIth Revolution binary callbacks from XCMDs the task of creating a 
compiler and debugger might be a bit more manageable and certainly 
would be a fun project.

TOMORROW

Enough history and what-if's!

BOTTOM LINE: I'm interested. My company (Daniels & Mara, creators of 
Constellation) would be interested in discussing a commercial venture. 
Not sure I'm all that interested in an open-source, design-by-committee 
free-for-all, I'd, of course, prefer a real project with direction and 
technical/financial purpose. There are several large hurdles in the 
process.

Let's keep this discussion going.

Best,

Jerry

On Jun 23, 2005, at 9:00 AM, Rob Cozens wrote:

> 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
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