From: draper@odin.mda.uth.tmc.edu (E.J. Draper)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard
Subject: Re: The DEATH of HyperCard and Don Crabb
Date: 28 Jan 1993 19:20:06 GMT
Organization: U.T.M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
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X-XXDate: Thu, 28 Jan 93 19:12:44 GMT

Subject: Re: The DEATH of HyperCard and Don Crabb
From: Michael Kerner, mike@pyrite.SOM.CWRU.Edu
Date: 28 Jan 1993 15:54:25 GMT
In article <1k8vjhINNt5u@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> Michael Kerner,
mike@pyrite.SOM.CWRU.Edu writes:
>(begin flame)
>
>>1) Claris has done an ABYSMAL job at maintaining ALL their products. 
The
>>only product that's been even remotely properly updated has been
>>FileMaker.  If you think they've done a terrible job with HyperCard, ask
>>yourself about the fabled MacWrite Pro, or MacPaint or MacProject.  
>
>Irrelevant.  Indeed, if Claris cannot make money on HyperCard then it
>is dead and you can forget about anything resembling a 3.0 or beyond
>ever coming to market. 

Sorry.  Not quite.  They can't make money on HyperCard without
maintaining it. Irrelevant?  Hardly.  Perhaps you would suggest selling
MacWrite 2.2 in today's marketplace?  Don't worry, when you lose your
shirt and sell five or ten units you can always sell the source code to
Danny Goodman! ;-)


>>2) The people in HyperCard marketing don't realize how important the
>>"strategic leak" is.  People in the industry count on these little
>>tidbits of data to help them make decisions about product direction. 
...
>
>Perhaps, but I just received and returned a survey from Claris (I
>think it was four pages long - maybe more) that asked for input on the
>direction they go with HC 

So, What??  I fail to see the significance of some silly little marketing
pamphlet.  What matters is HOW MANY USER SUGGESTED FEATURES GET
IMPLEMENTED!  They can collect all the data they want!  They need to
implement the ideas!  They never did!  I'm talking about a partnership
here.  The public provides many directions for a product to take, the
company responds by following some of those directions.  The company
gives its feedback in the form of press releases and public statements. 
There needs to be a synergy between company, public and press.  HyperCard
experienced a total collapse of the synergy.

>>3) Why on earth would Apple want to give away source code to one of the
>>most revolutionary products in the software industry?  Is Crabb out of
>>his mind?
>
>'cause they ain't making money on it - they're losing money, and they
>have a chance to sell it an get something for their effort. 

What!!  The absurdity of this statement doesn't even merit a response.

>
>>4) His idea about selling the source to Danny Goodman or Dan Shafer was
>>utterly preposterous. These people are writers, they are not high
powered
>>businessmen.  They don't even begin to have to resources it would take
to
>>develop and market HyperCard.
>
>Uh, no.  Actually the bigots are going to make or break it for two
>reasons:
>1) marketing - Goodman and Shafer have charisma and if they aksed for
>help or if they took the product, everyone gets excited and
>expectations rise again, which pumps new life into HC.
>2) As bigots they carry an additional commitment to see the product
>succeed.  Running the show = the power to make HC take off again.

Nonsense.  These are all incredible leaps in logic that presume:

Goodman & Shafer Have Charisma - hummmm....

Goodman & Shafer Get The Community Excited - Why?  I could care less.

Expectations And Community Excitement Lead To Better Product Marketing -
Nope.  There are many factors that lead to better product marketing. 
Savvy hype and management are factors, but the race will be won or lost
based on the quality of the product.  Do you remember FullWrite or Doug
Clapp's word tools?

or, in other words: !(Running the show = the power to make HC take off
again);

>
>>2) The entire article stems from a one misplaced presupposition, that
>>being, that HyperCard will "die."  No evidence of this impending "death"
>>was provided by Crabb.
>
>He doesn't have to - it's common knowledge or at least common
>conjecture.  

Not quite.  There was many things that could've been done with or to
HyperCard.  For instance, I was told, by my Claris rep, that HyperCard
was just "seriously behind schedule."  I was told that the color version,
with many other niceties, was in our imminent future.

>
>>3) HyperCard already supports APIs to other languages. It always has. 
>>You can write externals in everything from BASIC to assembler to Pascal,
>>FORTRAN and C.
>
>So?  Why is 4D selling like crazy and HC not at all?  Having neat
>API's does not a successful product make.
>
You may want to reference the article. Concerning "Better extensions to
HyperTalk" Crabb says the following:

..."strong application programming interfaces to other programming
languages"..."multimedia extensions"...

I simply stated that HyperCard already has those features and has had
them since the day it was released.


>by the way,
>YOU HAVE BEEN FLAMED.

Ya. Right.  I'm burnin.



One thing I do apologize for is the "fatman" crack.  It was uncalled for,
and I'm sorry I said it.


      |E|J-  ED DRAPER
 rEpar|D|<-  Radiologic/Pathologic Institute
             The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
             draper@odin.mda.uth.tmc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard