From: Eric C. Kofoid <kofoid@bioscience.utah.edu>
Subject: Re: Claris, HyperCard, the Player, etc...
X-Xxdate: Mon, 28 Sep 92 01:01:22 GMT
Organization: Dept. Biology, University of Utah
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d7
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 92 23:56:41 GMT

In article <72772@apple.Apple.COM> John Kevin Calhoun, jkc@Apple.COM
writes:
> <many perceptive and reasoned comments deleted>
>Those are the realities of the marketplace.  Now let's talk about
>changing the world.  So, how (and why) are we going to help keep
>HyperCard alive?  That's our assignment.  On my end, I promise to
>keep the wheels turning...
>
>Kevin Calhoun
>jkc@apple.com 

I feel duty bound to comment, as I have made heavy use of HyperCard since 
its appearence in 1987 and have a vested interest in keeping it alive.

I would first like to thank Kevin for his enormous help to the user 
community and his constant guiding presence in this froup. It's people
like 
him who make Apple unique. I wish I could say the same for its
subsidiary, 
Claris. I can't recall the last time a Claris representative added
significantly to a discussion in this forum, which is nevertheless
focused on 
one of their principal products.

My first real HC project was a tutorial on the Pascal language used as an 
aid in my introductory Pascal classes. I was impressed by the speed with 
which I was able to cobble together a free-form easily searched database 
which was simultaneously attractive, fun to use and essentially bug-free 
from the outset. This entire project took less than a week.

I then created a more sophisticated stack for a private roofing firm 
allowing office personnel to make rapid job estimates with data from the 
phone or from field estimators. Again, the job was almost trivial, as it 
required mainly that I concentrate on methods for doing basic
calculations, 
not on details of interface, memory management or interactions with other 
programs. The interface was then be built around the solved programming 
problem in a relaxed and evolutionary fashion. Again, this project took 
only a couple of weeks.

Over the last year, I have developed a search engine which rapidly scans 
text for records matching Boolean targets. The targets can contain up to
14 
literal text strings related (within constraints of available memory) by 
any number of "and", "or" or "not" operators and may contain nested 
parentheses to any depth. The stack is used in our department to search 
text based data containing detailed descriptions of strain genotypes. The 
database for our lab alone contains 10,000 strain descriptions, many of 
which run to several lines.

The engine was written in Pascal and compiled as an XFCN. Time to develop 
the algorithm and write the external amounted to a couple of months. The 
time spent on HyperTalk code and user interface was perhaps another month 
to get a functioning and useful stack in the hands of relatively naive 
users. It has since gone through a number of bug fixes and enhancements. 
Compared to programs which I have written and maintained in traditional 
languages, this stack has represented an almost effortless drain on my 
time, which after all is spent mainly doing wet work at the bench.

HyperCard thus represents functionality very much in the spirit of 
integrated Basic interpreters found in early Apples and other 
microcomputers (a word we rarely see anymore!). 

... yet, Kevin is right. We are in the midst of a depression, Claris and 
Apple have to keep their heads above water, and somehow HC must survive.
In 
general, Apple's marketing strategy is a good one: separate the box from 
the system, dropping the price of the former and increasing the price of 
the latter. Thus, the net effect is not much different. However, to an 
information service manager or corporate purchasing suit, the hardware 
price is the bottom line, as this is the way it has been done in the 
IBM/clone world since day one. 

I would suggest that Apple and its surrogate, Claris, honor their 
commitment to HyperCard as system software, but bundle it with the core 
system necessary to run the Mac. I would include both the Player and a 
version essentially equal to 2.1. The first is absolutely indispensible; 
the second would allow the user to do simple off-the-cuff programming for 
a variety of purposes. Claris should also offer a substantially beefed-up 
development system in the $300-400 range for commercial programmers. The 
developer version would be the major focus for improvement by Claris 
software engineers. Hence, it must pay for itself. Player and the hobby 
version will be underwritten by the need to buy the system in the first 
place.

Apple must also break the unfortunate mindset among new users that HC is 
strictly an "address book". This should be done by providing the novice 
with a couple of clever and exciting stacks that secretly inculcate the 
beauty and utility of programming. Don't hide scripting from the new
user! 
HC should be promoted as an enabling tool.

Cheers,

Eric. 

ooo Dr. Cancer ooo  (Eric Kofoid; Dept. Biology; U.of Utah; SLC 84112)

  "Being certain of the conclusion assists in finding the proof" 
                                      Galileo, 17th century
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard