how big is the language?

[J. Landman Gay]

On 6/13/03 1:51 PM, Chipp Walters wrote:
> 
> Does anyone know the answer to the following?

Only some of it, and only approximately.

> 1) How large IS the Transcript Language? (number of words the parser
> recognizes + custom Rev stuff) How large is MetaTalk? Doesn't need to be
> exact.

The MetaCard reference stack has 916 cards. Some of these are index 
cards, but I'm guessing the engine itself can parse somewhere around 900 
tokens.

I don't know how many Revolution-specific commands there are, but these 
would be in addition to the above.

> 2) How large IS/WAS the HyperTalk language? SuperTalk?

The HyperCard reference contains about 280 tokens. I'm not sure about 
Supercard.

> 3) How large is the 'basic' vocabulary for MetaTalk/Transcript? IOW, how
> many words would a beginner be expected to know?

That could vary a lot, depending on what the scripter needs to do. I'd 
guess you could get by with as few as 50 or 100 words if you weren't 
doing anything fancy. Three hundred words would give you all the basic 
functionality that HyperCard users had.

-- 
Jacqueline Landman Gay         |     jacque at hyperactivesw.com
HyperActive Software           |     http://www.hyperactivesw.com