Capturing a new form of magic

[FourthWorld]

A thought experiment some of you may have opinions on:

While researching file systems I stumbled across this artticle on BeOS from back in the day, and buried in it is this interesting observation about HyperCard:

Benoit: Look at Hypercard. Hypercard did it more right than many people accepted. Do you know Hypercard? There's a lot of smart work in there. They really blew it by trying to make it into something it was not supposed to be, which was a programming environment. And it was NOT a programming environment.

Reg: Sure, but wasn't it just used for stacking and linking simple things…

Benoit: Yes but there's an abstraction model. Hypercard was a product that came ten years before it should have. They did the right thing there.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/03/29 ... se_sliced/

LiveCode has expanded on the flavor of HyperCard's language and moved it squarely into the realm of serious developer tools, and for those of us who enjoy it for that reason we're glad for the direction they've taken.

But that quote reminds me of the many not-so-programmery things people enjoyed about HyperCard, the sort of things some folks wistfully try to articulate about HyperCard's unique charm.

I'm not interested in seeing LiveCode itself become anything other than what it is right now, a great way to easily make powerful software for multiple platforms.

Yet reflecting on how people reminisce about HyperCard, I sometimes wonder if we might perhaps consider using LiveCode Community Edition to make something quite different, something that captures some of that simple magic of HyperCard, but in a new form the world has not yet seen, and which could be freely shared by all.

What might that thing look like?

[dunbarx]

Richard.

Nobody is more wistful than I.

HC presented lots of people an opportunity to program, because technology had reached a point where one could operate at a level very high indeed above machine language. HC allowed one to use coding tools that were "readable" in an environment that was comfortable. This is what attracted the several hundred thousand users of Dan Goodman's book. .

HC was designed to run on a 1 MB machine. No color; it could not afford it. But I see LC as identical to HC, albeit that memory has become a bit less expensive, the times have become more "modern" (as the times will do as time passes) and, of course, nobody has abandoned it. LC IS HC, just nurtured and expanded and living in a richer world. That it can, to many excited users, address mobile and the web (can you say "Tim Berners-Lee?") might turn many heads toward the x-talk paradigm. This is what gives hope to me.

I fantasize that one day x-talk will become the only reasonable way to program anything at all, including toasters.

What quite different thing, broadly, were you thinking about? I am thinking about toasters.

Craig

[FourthWorld]

I can't say I have anything specific in mind. I posted this in OT because it was just a passing thought, but I do hear so many fond recollections of HyperCard that I sometimes wonder what sort of gizmo might capture some of that feeling for our modern times. I just have no idea what it is, but maybe someone here has a notion worth exploring.

[dunbarx]

When I was at the unConference, I was amazed to note that the attendees fell into mainly two categories. One was comprised of old HC users, and the other was made up of new, inexperienced people that had little or no coding experience at all, but somehow were drawn to the conference.

Why were they drawn? There was some inkling that an accessible programming environment just might be on the earth, one they could learn and use for their own purposes, which ranged from private development to commercial business endeavors.

This is the crowd LC needs to attract. HC got its start and popularity because Atkinson insisted that John Sculley bundle it with every Mac. LC has a far harder row to hoe. It already "gives" it away, but is missing that little detail. Maybe Apple and MS would allow them to place a flyer in each machine box?

I have digressed from your point, but I make my own; the key, the opportunity for LC is to get that message out.

I'm not interested in seeing LiveCode itself become anything other than what it is right now, a great way to easily make powerful software for multiple platforms.

That statement alone is what I would characterize as the magic. Get that going, and the rest will come.

Craig

[Dixie]

I'm not interested in seeing LiveCode itself become anything other than what it is right now, a great way to easily make powerful software for multiple platforms.

I agree with Craig... this sums up for me what LiveCode should be all about !... the 'magic' though is in danger of being weakened by intoducing a second language into the LiveCode mix that will only attract a few and not the majority of LiveCode users, now and in the future... give your support to programmable toasters..

[mwieder]

The main thing that I miss from HyperCard is the "LinktTo" feature. I've always thought that LiveCode should have this - it's what gives users the out-of-box instant gratification of being able to build applications that actually do things. After that they can start diving into coding.

I made a plugin a while back that brings this functionality to the IDE, but I think it should be built in, not something that makes users first get used to the IDE, then find out about plugin stacks, and then have to install an external plugin for. Should just be able to install the IDE, make a new stack, put an object on the stack, and right-click or control-click or something to bring up a dialog to create a new card or select an existing object as the target. Voila! - you've created a stack that does something!

[dunbarx]

Mark.

Voila! - you've created a stack that does something!

Bill Atkinson early on thought that this sort of thing was where the magic was. Instant gratifi... er, empowerment. He was personally skeptical that very many people at all would ever embrace Hypertalk, never mind that a vast population would end up wanting to know every detail and nuance about it.

Thank heaven for Dan Winkler.

So maybe the magic that Richard started this with is indeed to provide AND TOUT a "layer" of what HC used to call "authoring", one level below "scripting" (in the old tongue) and present that as a starting point for new users. I had forgotten about that until you brought it back. Perhaps a prolog to the user guide, or a few specially designated lessons?

In other words, LC being so much richer than HC ever dreamed of, it is possible that everybody has naturally assumed that the proper "starting point" is to learn coding, the message hierarchy and stack structure, rather than to just happily make new cards?

Craig

[pthirkell]

You might be on to an interesting idea here. True you can't bundle LC onto every Mac machine out there. But it could go into the app store perhaps? It would potentially fit within the "productivity" - "Developer Tools" - "Education" categories. And I like the suggestion that 2 or 3 "levels" could be set: simple for beginners as HC used to be, but with progressively more powerful levels as people gain confidence and want to explore further. Hypercard really was like magic!

[jacque]

Playing devil's advocate here, the flip side of this empowerment is the creation of really bad stacks that gave HC a bad name, and LiveCode spent some years trying to disassociate themselves from it.

They've re-embraced the comparison in recent years so maybe it isn't an issue any more.

[dunbarx]

Jacque is right about that, you know.

At least any new horrors would be in color. They seemed even worse, in, oh, 1989, in black and white. Sort of like a five year old fooling around with MacPaint. (Which was also created by Bill Atkinson)

Craig

[mwieder]

At least any new horrors would be in color.

Yeah, I've seen some of those. And made some myself.

So, to play Devil's Advocate to Jacque, maybe the way forward is to have a certification process. The standalone builder remains locked until you either a) supply the serial code that proves you have passed the certification test or b) have proved your prowess by figuring out how to unlock it yourself.

And maybe there should be no saveStack function... you have to get far enough along in your learning process to create your own in order to save a stack in progress.

And no primary colors or default buttons should be allowed until you've passed the UX certification.

[jacque]

And any stack that includes Barney the dinosaur is automatically disqualified. But I do so wish I'd saved a copy of "Man gets beheaded by a ceiling fan." It was my all time favorite.

So, you going to write the certification test?

[mwieder]

Certainly not. I'd never live it down when I failed a test of my own devising.

[dunbarx]

I think what Jacque meant may take two forms:

1- Graphics that look like a precursor layout for Steamboat Willie. But the game "Cosmic Osmo" looked like that cartoon, but was nonetheless sublime.

2- Coding that looks like a precursor layout for Steamboat Wille. I have lots of these. They are for sale cheap.

Craig