Analytical Engine - An Introduction to Computer Science

[Richard Gaskin]

Alejandro Tejada wrote:

 > Does anyone have this HyperCard book in his/her bookshelf? and
 > Could you provide us with a fair review of it's content?
...
 > Analytical Engine: An Introduction to Computer Science Using
 > HyperCard 2.1
 > (Computer Science Series) Paperback – September 27, 1993
 > by Rick Decker  (Author), Stuart Hirshfield (Author)
...
 > If we believe this book's introduction then this is exactly the kind
 > of content that should be updated for this platform.
 >
 > How many interesting and really useful books about HyperCard published
 > between 1987 and 1998
 > are just waiting to be rediscovered and updated?

You might be surprised at how much work would be needed to make them 
relevant to modern LiveCode, if they can be made relevant at all.

I haven't read "Analytical Engine" so maybe it's an exception to the 
rule, but most of the HyperCard books I've seen are very specific to 
HyperCard itself, replete with explanations of the UI that's very 
different from LC, and when they discuss even the core language I often 
find that the things most inventively useful things back in the day have 
turned out to be what we might consider workarounds for things built 
into LiveCode today.

For example, one of my favorite books on HyperTalk was Colouris and 
Thimbleby's "HyperProgramming". I remember it being among the most 
exciting HyperTalk books I'd purchased at the time, but I was reviewing 
it again recently and found that most of it is a (nicely done) rehash of 
the HC manual, and it's not until page 271 that it breaks interesting 
new ground with a discussion of a lightweight framework for developing 
in HC.  The final section after that contains some ideas for tools that 
were very powerful at the time, but with LiveCode's arrays, extended 
chunk expressions, and deeper more flexible object model none of those 
would be how those problems would be solved in LC.

Similarly, I have a copy of Peter Desberg's "HyperInteractive CAI: Using 
HyperCard to Develop Computer-Assisted Instruction".  Here there's 
slightly more content that might be adaptable for LC, with its focus on 
instructional design - Mr. Desberg is a well respected professor at Cal 
State University at Dominguez Hills, and his deep experience as an 
educator shows through in his writing.  But the implementation of his 
ideas throughout the book is so specific to HyperCard that there's 
hardly much there that I could recommend to someone learning LiveCode 
for use in education.

One thing all the xTalk books from the '80s and '90s have in common is 
the nearly complete absence of one of the most defining elements of our 
time:  the Internet.

Coupled with the new capabilities LC has introduced to the xTalk world, 
and richer object model, and of course support for mobile platforms, the 
ways we solve problems today are very different from how we solved them 
back then.  Even when some of the core language seems strikingly 
similar, that similarity is largely superficial, however seductively so: 
  we can run many algos we'd written back then, but today we'd write 
them very differently.

IMHO, the opportunities for delivering good learning materials for 
LiveCode fall into two camps:

- Community engagement with the core team to refine, enhance, and extend 
the wealth of existing resources freely available to all: the User 
Guide, Dictionary, lessons, tutorials, and example stacks. Most of the 
documentation is already in Github and can be worked on today; a brief 
guide for orienting to Github for LC documentation is being drafted by 
the team to make that even easier going forward.

- Domain-specific reference and tutorial information for areas like 
workgroup support, business management, enterprise devops, education, etc.

As for education, the Education Community Outreach project has a forum 
section and a team leader, Max Shafer, and everyone interested in 
exploring opportunities for learning materials, template stacks, tools, 
and other resources to support the use of LiveCode in educational 
settings is strongly encouraged to dive in:
<http://forums.livecode.com/viewforum.php?f=107>

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  LiveCode Community Manager
  richard at livecode.org