Perhaps the computing experience should be precisely the more holistic one. Hypercard is exceptional for many reasons: new users can do a lot without writing co

Perhaps the computing experience should be precisely the more holistic one. Hypercard is exceptional for many reasons: new users can do a lot without writing code, but can easily "see" how it works by inspecting things (in a language that is readable even for non-programmers). You can copy and paste everything. It integrated well with the system upon which it was built. It let users do what they needed to, for their own ends, without making too many assumptions -- and it did this in a highly accessible way. That should be what personal computing is all about. I think the key lesson, really, is that you need intuitive metaphors to make such things work. The idea of cards and stacks are highly intuitive in this case. It's worth booting up Sheepshaver and giving the final version of Hypercard another look. The default home stack -- complete with interactive examples and documentation that you can straight up copy and paste -- is still a marvel of design in my view.