Where does survive the inventive user ?

Chipp Walters chipp at chipp.com
Sat Aug 6 20:55:48 EDT 2011


I think like many other software driven technologies, LC has passed by the
basic "inventive" user HC may have been intended for.

For instance, I quit using MS Word. It just got too complicated and I don't
typically do desktop publishing, or write large books, so I pretty much
stick with Google Docs: the MacWrite of it's time.

Sadly, as computers and users become more sophisticated, and as their
programs continue to evolve with "new, better" features so they can continue
to charge for the next upgrade, what is lost is much of the original
'gotcha' germ of attraction. I'm afraid LC is to HyperCard as MS Word is to
MacWrite. I'm not sure one can go backwards easily.

I'm suspect LC has close to an order of magnitude more tokens than HC--
there's just so much more to learn. Not to mention it now runs on at least
half a dozen platforms in many different incarnations. And it needs to
support much more on each platform. Back when HC was around, they didn't
have to support SQL, or a browser, or even color bit depths more than 1.
They didn't have to worry about libURL, image and alphadata, multiple
screens, regex, and mutiple flavors of repeat statements. Not to mention all
the new messages now recognized, especially in mobile platforms.

Even all that said, assuming one could 'dumb down' LC to basic HC levels,
and assuming one could write a really nice set of home, address, calendar,
etc. demo stacks (didn't Gaskin once write a beginner Address stack or am I
dreaming?), does anyone really think HyperCard, reimagined as LC, would
actually gain traction in today's world? Remember, back when HC was born,
there was no Internet, or really much in the way of email, so folks who
wanted to 'invent' really didn't have much OTHER than HyperCard and Basic
(which pretty much sucked).



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