Another 5-out-5 review for LC!

[Kay C Lan]

What a great write up, congrats Runrev Team.

In light of the other thread about HyperCard, the only thing that makes me
wince in the write-up is the multiple references to the stack/card metaphor.

Whilst a knowledge of the past is all well and good, for the rising
generation of potential programmers, "is based on the ground breaking
HyperCard" would have been all the reference needed. Anyone looking for
HC's replacement would have had their interest peaked. For new programmers
the Stack, and particularly Card metaphor is a sidetrack.

The biggest hurdle I had to cross when transitioning from HC to LC, was the
move AWAY from the use of Cards as a storage system. To take better
advantage of all those improvements over HC I had to STOP thinking of data
as Cards.

I haven't written a Stack with multiple Cards in quite a while. Stacks and
SubStacks, yes. When was the last time anyone here created a Stack full of
Cards?

If I was to take a room full of students, brand new to programming, I would
teach them about seperating the GUI from the data. I'd refer to the data in
terms that LC loves; lines, words, items, chars - chunks. And how to take
advantage of that. Apart from being forced to mention Card because scripts
are going to be written on the Card Script, and there is going to be
openCard and closeCard handlers, I know I'd ever mention the Card metaphor
because it's just not valid anymore.

The reason MacUpdate might have given it LC a lower rating is an assumption
that you are stuck building Stacks full of Cards.

If I were to use a metaphor for todays kids, I'd say LC is like iTunes:

You can click on a button and you can display a vast list of just text
(your music Library)
You can click on a button and display images and text (music Library with
Artwork)
You can click on a button and display just images.
You can double click on a line/word and start playing music or movies.
You can click on a button and connect to the internet
You can click on a button and download from the internet
You can create your own button that do their own custom sorts so you only
see the music/movies that meet whatever mood you feel like.

BUT it's not just for music or movies, it's for anything you can think of,
photos, emails, SMS, homework notes, athletic training records, football
scores, ANYTHING you do on a computer, you can do with LC.

When kids import another song into iTunes, they know it just becomes
another line of data, thats EXACTLY how they need to think about data with
LC.

But that's just me.