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Date:         Sun, 4 Oct 1992 23:17:00 EST
From:         "JEFFREY R. GALIN" <GALIN@PITTVMS.BITNET>
Subject:      programming as foreign language

For the past couple of days I've been corresponding with Kevin Calhoun
who posted a comprehensive, albeit technical definition of
HyperCard on the Hypercard list.  If anyone is interested I'll post it
here on MBU.  I have put several questions to him about HyperCard and
whether he considers it a "language" sufficient for fulfilling the
language requirements I posted earlier on MBU in my own definition of
the authoring program.  I think what he had to say to me over several
messages might be useful for our discussion here.  I have included only
what I think are the pertinent parts.

        Kevin's former position in the Apple organization, as he explains,
"is perhaps the most relevant:  I was the lead software engineer for
HyperCard 2.0 and the engineering manager for HyperCard 2.1.  At present
I'm a member of the Application Technologies group in Apple R&D,
Macintosh Software Architecture division.  What that means, I'm not
qualified to say!"

When I asked him whether he thought HyperCard could satisfy the language
proficiency requirement he responded:


<HyperTalk is certainly as powerful and flexible a computer language as
<BASIC is.  Perhaps to convince your Graduate Student director, you
<should demonstrate some of the HyperCard stacks that have been developed
<for educational purposes.  There are some very nice ones available for
<ftp transfer from sumex-aim.stanford.edu and from mac.archive.umich.edu,
<including the Celtic History Museum (one of my favorites), Shakespeare's
<Works Volume I, and a large English dictionary in stack form.

<Although there are no courses in your computer science department that
<teach HyperCard, there are such courses at other universities.  If you
<can find it, you might show your advisor a textbook called _The
<Analytical Engine_, which teaches fundamental programming concepts and
<skills by using HyperTalk scripts for its samples and exercises.  This
<text was in use at Dartmouth College for several years (I don't know
<whether it still is or not).

<In any case, I'd hate to think that your choice of languages should be
<limited to those that are taught at your institution.  Is it possible
<to fulfill your language requirements with, say, Hungarian, which is
<probably not taught at Pitt?

He added further:

<If you can fulfill your department's requirements with BASIC, then
<HyperTalk should also suffice.  BASIC has no structure, whereas
<HyperTalk at least hints at modern object-oriented concepts.

<For your director, use Dartmouth as your example.  BASIC was invented
<at Dartmouth to be a beginner's language, but HyperTalk, at least for
<a period of a few years, supplanted BASIC in the curriculum.  So
<there.

When Fred Kemp posted his own story about satisfying a language
requirement, I sent Kevin a copy of the post asking if he agreed with
Fred's comments about HyperCard.  Kevin quoted Fred's message and
responded to it:

>>Don't want to be a computer linguist snob, but I'm
>> not sure that Hypertalk or whatever *Toolbook* uses falls into
>> the category of programming languages, although as the "usual"
>> languages get more and more friendly they approach the ease of
>> "authoring" tools like Hypercard.

<Ease of use has nothing to do with the question, in my mind.  If it's
<a language for programming, then, by gum, it's a programming language.
<Whether knowledge of the language is valuable as an adjunct to
<academic study is not to be determined by how hard it is to use the
<language!  If Fred Kemp can come up with a task that can be programmed
<in BASIC but not in HyperTalk, then I'll consider the question again,
<but, in the meantime, I think very little of his argument.

Clearly Kevin has a stake in the questions I have posed to him,
considering his position in the Apple Corporation.  As a leading,
software developer for HyperCard 2.0 and engineering manager of
2.1 Kevin has a great deal invested in HyperCard.  He does also hold
an MA in English and plans to get back into a PhD program.  So, he does
have a sense of what Grad departments are like.  I value his
perspective and would like to get some feedback about his comments
from folks on MBU.  What say you?

jeff galin
galin@vms.cis.pitt.edu

PS Thanks to Fred, Paul, Ellen, Locke, and others who have offered
their "stories" in this regard.  I'm getting a good picture of the
case I'll have to present.
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU