From: heimberg@chance.mitre.org (Jeff Heimberger)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard,comp.sys.mac.programmer,comp.sys.mac.apps,comp.sys.mac.wanted,comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Spinnaker PLUS for Mac/IBM PC Cross-Development Application
Summary: Seems to be OK.
Date: 13 Apr 92 19:15:47 GMT
Article-I.D.: linus.1992Apr13.191547.17707
Followup-To: comp.sys.mac.hypercard
Organization: The MITRE Corporation

Hello:

I posted a request for information about Spinnaker PLUS on
comp.sys.mac.programmer, comp.sys.mac.hypercard, comp.sys.mac.apps,
comp.sys.mac.wanted, and comp.sys.mac.misc a few weeks ago, with
follow-up directed to comp.sys.mac.hypercard.  This is the summary of
the answers to my questions.  I'd like to thank the following
individuals who responded with useful answers (I'm sorry if I left
anyone out -- it was not intentional):

     Who                   Where
     -------------------   -----------------------------------
     Paul E. Jacoby        pejacoby@serc.3m.com
     Bernhard Pfahringer   bernhard@venedig.ai.univie.ac.at
     Russell               owen@astro.washington.edu
     Steve                 WHITESR@CONRAD.APPSTATE.EDU
     Joel R. Kallman       kallman@idicl1.idi.battelle.org
     John Healy            jphealy@luna.hac.com
     Anonymous Person      Anonymous West Coast Aerospace Firm
     Sandy Grossmann       sandyg@sail.labs.tek.com

To the best of my knowledge, none of the respondents has a direct
financial interest in Spinnaker Corporation.

The general consensus seems to be best described as a "grudging
respect" for PLUS.  There are some short-comings, but it does seem to
work pretty much as advertised.  The major problem that almost all
respondents brought up is that PLUS is really *slow*.

The following is a summary of the information I received in response to
my earlier posting.  I first list each question I asked, and then
compile what I learned about it.  After that, I present additional
insight that some folks offered.  For the sake of brevity, attributions
to individual contributors are not included.

(One person suggested I post a similar request for info to some of the
IBM PC newsgroups, but other responsibilities have prevented my doing
so.  If anyone else does, please email me a summary of what you find
out.)

Now my questions:

Q:  Has anybody out there used PLUS?  Do you like it?  What are its
    major advantages or disadvantages?

A:  Advantages:

    1.  PLUS has been used on projects which required color, something
	HyperCard was not able to do.

    2.  Adequate performance has been obtained on a Mac IIci by using a
	lot of (compatible) XCMDs and XFCNs.  (I guess whether this is
	really an advantage or disadvantage is up to the reader.)

    3.  "PLUS is great for proof of concept demonstrations."

    4.  "It works.  Pretty darned amazing."

    5.  "It's OK compared to HC 1.x; not as good as 2.x."

    6.  "Its major advantages are that it has a somewhat better
	programming environment than HyperCard, it offers more classes
	of objects and text types."

    7.  "The technical support is very good at Spinnaker, once you
	actually get a live person!  (They record your name and number
	and call you back.)"  [Personally, I've found this to be quite
	annoying.  They almost always have to call you back, even if
	you connect with the right person when you call.  They must
	have tremendous telephone bills!]

    Disadvantages:

    1.  PLUS for Windows is very slow compared to HyperCard on a Mac.
	This may be inherent to Windows, rather than to PLUS.

    2.  Spinnaker has apparently devoted all their resources to their
	Windows products and do not intend to update PLUS on the Mac
	for System 7 unless funded externally.

    3.  PLUS 2.0/2.1 cannot use most of the new HyperCard 2 externals.

    4.  PLUS cannot have multiple windows open (and the externals it
	can use from Hypercard must be modal).

    5.  "It has a couple gotchas that are unexpected, such as hidden
	ways to recolor text through a script (had to call Spinnaker to
	find out how to do it!)."

    6.  "Another disadvantage is the documentation, which only provides
	the DIFFERENCES between itself and HyperTalk.  And not always
	that."

Q:  Can PLUS really translate and run HyperCard stacks easily?

A:  1.  People have successfully converted Hypercard stacks to PLUS
	stacks (per the instructions in their manual), but not without
	at least some difficulties:

	o  "Sometimes during the execution of a handler, PLUS would
	   complain that it couldn't understand 'on mouseUp'.
	   Everything worked fine when executing this script a second
	   time.  This problem was reproducible, in that it always
	   worked the second time, but not the first."

	o  "Yes, if you follow some guidelines.  We've done some small
	   projects with PLUS on both the Mac & PC (Windows). ... I've
	   not found anything better."

	o  "It does fine with translating the basic stuff, but doesn't
	   seem to be able to translate stuff like the addresses of
	   other applications."

	o  "It did just fine translating some stacks we developed, not
	   so fine updating the HomeDesk shareware."

Q:  Just how effective is PLUS at running stacks on a PC that were
    developed on a Mac?

A:  1.  People have successfully developed an application using PLUS on
	the Mac, and then ported it to Windows.  This seems to work,
	with the exception of a few minor problems.

        o  You have to be careful with the fonts you're using in
           Windows.  Font conversion results in the need for some
	    minor re-alignment.

	o  You have to be careful with the screen display (640x480,
           800x600, etc.).

	o  "Non-vanilla features like sound resources, color icons,
	   externals, etc., do not convert."

        o  PLUS Windows is apparently limited to 16 colors.

        o  "Performance on a PC clone 386 is pretty good."

        o  "Keyboard shortcuts map well."

    2.  "I've seen it the other way around:  a stack that was
        developed on the PC did flawlessly when brought to the Mac."

Q:  Is there a compiler available for PLUS?  We need to send the final
    application out to more than 150 sites, and we can't buy each one a
    copy of PLUS.  (This isn't a problem with HyperCard, which comes
    bundled with the Mac.)

A:  1.  Nobody knows of any compiler for PLUS for either the Mac or IBM
	environment.  "Both products are extensible, in that the Mac
	version supports XCMDs just like HyperCard, and the Windows
	version supports Dynamic Link Libraries."

    2.  There is an [inexpensive] site run-time license available for
	PLUS on both the Mac and IBM platforms.  "This permits folks to
	run stacks without purchase of a copy of the developer version
	-- but only at Typing level."

Additional info:

    1. Oracle has a demo called OracleCard that was developed using
       Spinnaker PLUS.  The speed is said to not be impressive, but it
       apparently has been well received.  I did not get a chance to
       call Oracle about it.

    2. SuperCard was recommended to us.  It is said to have a nice
       environment, but we can't use it since it is not cross-
       compatible with an IBM environment.

    3. A recommendation to use either Digitalk's Smalltalk/V or
       ParcPlace's Smalltalk-80 as alternatives was interesting, but
       neither is appropriate for this project.  Digitalk has
       apparently promised Mac/IBM cross-compatibility, but it's still
       vaporware.  Smalltalk-80 is said to be quite expensive, and may
       not use the native Mac environment.  I did not look into either
       of these options in more detail due to my own time constraints.
       Schedule and budget remain our primary concerns.

    4. There was some discussion about which versions of HyperCard
       (e.g., 1.0, 2.0v2, 2.1) PLUS can convert stacks from.  It's
       generally believed PLUS can do 1.0 stacks now, with 2.0 stacks
       promised soon.

    5. Spinnaker has intentions of releasing a UNIX version of PLUS
       sometime in 1992 or 1993.

Many thanks to all who contributed answers to these questions.  Any
misinterpretations of the responses are mine and mine alone.

Regards,

Jeff H...

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 Jeffrey A. Heimberger                               The MITRE Corporation
  Internet: heimberg@mitre.org                           Mail Stop Z667
 Telephone: (703) 883-5250                            7525 Colshire Drive
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Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard