From: mike@pyrite.SOM.CWRU.Edu (Michael Kerner)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard
Subject: Re: The DEATH of HyperCard and Don Crabb
Date: 28 Jan 1993 15:54:25 GMT
Organization: WSOM CSG, CWRU, Cleve., OH, 44106, USA
NNTP-Posting-Host: pyrite.som.cwru.edu

(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.  That was the point - that there is a circle
that keeps closing - Claris doesn't do a good job with HC, so
businesses with lots of money to spend on applications development
choose 4D (yes, I know there are other reasons for using 4D, but my
customers - Fortune 100 companies that will go unnamed) are using 4D
for application development that coule easily be done in HC.  Indeed,
a system that I spent six months on last year (in HC) was scrapped
until I could maintain performance and add color - so SuperCard was
out and it was not until ColorizeHC came back in that they even
considered giving it to the departments - but they want it converted
to 4D because they see no signs of life from Claris.

>
>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. 
>Claris has been dead silent about HyperCard for far too long.  As of
>right now, I don't think they have any idea how INCREDIBLY important it
>is to make a public announcement about the direction of HyperCard.  Right
>now, vaporware is far superior to the black void we all are facing.

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 - it's possible that all of us that filled
out the survey gave them some results they weren't anticipating and
they have thus gone back to retool, but Claris has been talking about
HC with certain people - it's just that a lot of people have things to
say so they don't have to go far to get input and they don't want lots
of input because they'll get swamped.  The fact is that if Claris is
looking to resurrect this product so that it is a serious player again
then they have to aim for the bucks - how do they repenetrate the
market that will be coughing the most cash out - the businesses that
have more than 100 machines and are doing custom application development?

>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.  HyperCard
is a standard, but nobody seems to be making any money on it (e.g.
Aldus with SuperCard), but in the right hands it can be a force again
- and it's only available on a Mac - the lookalikes like ToolBook and
Plus barely compare.

>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.

>= INACCURACIES =
>
>1) AppleScript != HyperTalk.  HyperTalk is a scripting language,
>AppleScript is a technology.  AppleScript is not syntax dependent, for
>example, you can use UserTalk (Frontier's scripting language) to write
>AppleScript "scripts."  Crabb uses AppleScript and HyperTalk
>interchangeably.

Perhaps, but I read it a little differently - I think he was talking
more about controlling other applications and using HyperCard as a
tool to do that, although I can see where you're coming from and I am
now sort of confused myself.

>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.  I've been wondering for a long time (patiently) if Claris
was ever going to get its act in gear with HC.  They've lost so much
ground to 4D in the custom-application development market that I'm not
sure they can ever catch up - most people as ordinary citizens do not
have the resources to pull the project out of the dumper.

>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.

>4) HyperCard already supports Multimedia extensions in the form of above
>XCMDs.

All those using HC for multimedia please raise your hands - sure there
are some, but by far most people are using Director - which is
interesting because the scripting language is similar, and I could see
a stack paradigm fitting better but yet the pros use other products.

>
>= SUMMARY =
>
>Besides his support of Nisus, Crabb's column has always been something of
>an annoyance to me.  He is frequently inaccurate and generally his
>rantings are best ignored.  I think MacWeek should look for someone else
>to fill his editorial space.

Perhaps he still has a job because he has something important and
intelligent to say...


by the way,
YOU HAVE BEEN FLAMED.


--
Mikey.
Mac Admin "Emeritus" / 	Engineer-NewMedia Corp. Cleveland, OH

"Software so good - it works!  uh, but that costs extra..."