5 ms·

> we would have had the current state of the web (ie. with client-side dynamic applications) a lot sooner But is this a good thing? After all, the web started

> we would have had the current state of the web (ie. with client-side dynamic applications) a lot sooner But is this a good thing? After all, the web started and succeeded as a simple platform for passive document-browsing rooted in markup (SGML) technologies. There never was a need for a new general-purpose app platform (because that existed, and still exists, in the form of operating systems). Arguably, seeing the web as primarly an app delivery platform is what ruined the web even. As to HyperTalk, it's an odd language for sure (did a HyperCard app for budget control in an agency around 1992), but listening to Bill Atkinson is still very inspiring.

nl 7y ago
As someone who had been building web stuff professionally since 1997 and got on it in 1994, I can say we were always trying to make it interactive back then because that's what people wanted. There's a whole stream of forgotten technologies (server push images? Image maps? Html layers?) that show this. Don't believe this rose tinted view of the old web. There was lots wrong with it and the current web stack is much, much better. (Also SGML was never deployed as part of the web)
- gnufx 7y ago
  It doesn't seems like a rose-tinted view, with a background then in heavily-networked operating systems and hypermedia. Much of what was wrong was due to Mosaic and co. The HTML standards were explicitly SGML applications, and the Amaya browser/editor had a fairly generic SGML engine. (As far as I know, Emacs W3 was the only browser even to implement everything in HTML 1, though.) Then, XML is an SGML application profile.
  - DonHopkins 7y ago
    Everybody thought NCP's 8 bit host ids were enough, until TCP/IP happened. Then everybody thought OSI was going to take over and rule the world, until TCP/IP didn't stop happening. And then everybody though IPV6 would quickly take over, until IPV4 refused to die. And everybody thought the world was going to run on SGML, until HTML happened. And then everybody thought SGML might rise from the dead until XML happened. And then everybody thought XML would never just go away and die, until JSON happened. Just goes to show, you never know!
- DonHopkins 7y ago
  Check out this mind-blowing thing called "LiveCard" that somebody made by combining HyperCard with MacHTTP/WebStar (a Mac web server by Chuck Shotton that supported integration with other apps via Apple Events)! It was like implementing interactive graphical CGI scripts with HyperCard, without even programming (but also allowing you to script them in HyperTalk, and publish live HyperCard databases and graphics)! Normal HyperCard stacks would even work without modification. It was far ahead of its time, and inspired me to integrate WebStar with ScriptX to generate static and dynamic HTML web sites and services! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21783227 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21783227 >In fact, one of the earliest tools that enabled anyone, even children, to author and publish their own interactive dynamic web applications with graphics, text, and even forms and persistent databases, was actually based on HyperCard and the MacHTTP/WebStar web server on the Mac: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16226209 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16226209 >One of the coolest early applications of server side scripting was integrating HyperCard with MacHTTP/WebStar, such that you could publish live interactive HyperCard stacks on the web! Since it was based on good old HyperCard, it was one of the first scriptable web authoring tools that normal people and even children could actually use! MacHTTP / WebStar from StarNine by Chuck Shotton, and LiveCard HyperCard stack publisher: CGI and AppleScript: http://www.drdobbs.com/web-development/cgi-and-applescript/184409741 http://www.drdobbs.com/web-development/cgi-and-applescript/1... >Cal discusses the Macintosh as an Internet platform, then describes how you can use the AppleScript language for writing CGI applications that run on Macintosh servers. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7865263 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7865263 MacHTTP / WebStar from StarNine by Chuck Shotton! He was also VP of Engineering at Quarterdeck, another pioneering company. https://web.archive.org/web/20110705053055/http://www.astronomy.pomona.edu/archeo/WebSTAR%20Doc.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20110705053055/http://www.astron... http://infomotions.com/musings/tricks/manuscript/0800-machttp.html http://infomotions.com/musings/tricks/manuscript/0800-machtt... http://tidbits.com/article/6292 http://tidbits.com/article/6292 >It had an AppleScript / OSA API that let you write handlers for responding to web hits in other languages that supported AppleScript. I used it to integrate ScriptX with the web: http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/lang/scriptx/scriptx-www.html http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/lang/scriptx/scriptx-www.htm... https://medium.com/@donhopkins/1995-apple-world-wide-developers-conference-kaleida-labs-scriptx-demo-64271dd65570 https://medium.com/@donhopkins/1995-apple-world-wide-develop... The coolest thing somebody did with WebStar was to integrate it with HyperCard so you could actually publish live INTERACTIVE HyperCard stacks on the web, that you could see as images you could click on to follow links, and followed by html form elements corresponding to the text fields, radio buttons, checkboxes, drop down menus, scrolling lists, etc in the HyperCard stack that you could use in the browser to interactive with live HyperCard pages! That was the earliest easiest way that non-programmers and even kids could both not just create graphical web pages, but publish live interactive apps on the web! Using HyperCard as a CGI application http://aaa-proteins.uni-graz.at/HyperCGI.html http://aaa-proteins.uni-graz.at/HyperCGI.html https://web.archive.org/web/20021013161709/http://pfhyper.com/hcfaq/hcfaq4.html https://web.archive.org/web/20021013161709/http://pfhyper.co... http://www.drdobbs.com/web-development/cgi-and-applescript/184409741 http://www.drdobbs.com/web-development/cgi-and-applescript/1... https://web.archive.org/web/19990208235151/http://www.royalsoftware.com/descriptions/comments.html https://web.archive.org/web/19990208235151/http://www.royals... What was it actually ever used for? Saving kid's lives, for one thing: >Livecard has exceeded all expectations and allows me to serve a stack 8 years in the making and previously confined to individual hospitals running Apples. A whole Childrens Hospital and University Department of Child Health should now swing in behind me and this product will become core curriculum for our medical course. Your product will save lives starting early 1997. Well done. - Director, Emergency Medicine, Mater Childrens Hospital
- somesortofsystm 7y ago
  You're totally spot-on with the 'forgotten technology'. Computer-Academia is a society which goes through cyclic periods of ignorance and dominance over industrial standard processes which produce viable exchange with the mass public, i.e. successful companies. Between the 'cool new shit learned in school' and the 'top secret lab tech', there is a lot of re-invention, invention, refactoring, re-discovery, re-research. Alas, the only good framework is the one in front of the user.

nl 7y ago

As someone who had been building web stuff professionally since 1997 and got on it in 1994, I can say we were always trying to make it interactive back then because that's what people wanted. There's a whole stream of forgotten technologies (server push images? Image maps? Html layers?) that show this. Don't believe this rose tinted view of the old web. There was lots wrong with it and the current web stack is much, much better. (Also SGML was never deployed as part of the web)

gnufx 7y ago
It doesn't seems like a rose-tinted view, with a background then in heavily-networked operating systems and hypermedia. Much of what was wrong was due to Mosaic and co. The HTML standards were explicitly SGML applications, and the Amaya browser/editor had a fairly generic SGML engine. (As far as I know, Emacs W3 was the only browser even to implement everything in HTML 1, though.) Then, XML is an SGML application profile.
- DonHopkins 7y ago
  Everybody thought NCP's 8 bit host ids were enough, until TCP/IP happened. Then everybody thought OSI was going to take over and rule the world, until TCP/IP didn't stop happening. And then everybody though IPV6 would quickly take over, until IPV4 refused to die. And everybody thought the world was going to run on SGML, until HTML happened. And then everybody thought SGML might rise from the dead until XML happened. And then everybody thought XML would never just go away and die, until JSON happened. Just goes to show, you never know!
DonHopkins 7y ago
Check out this mind-blowing thing called "LiveCard" that somebody made by combining HyperCard with MacHTTP/WebStar (a Mac web server by Chuck Shotton that supported integration with other apps via Apple Events)! It was like implementing interactive graphical CGI scripts with HyperCard, without even programming (but also allowing you to script them in HyperTalk, and publish live HyperCard databases and graphics)! Normal HyperCard stacks would even work without modification. It was far ahead of its time, and inspired me to integrate WebStar with ScriptX to generate static and dynamic HTML web sites and services! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21783227 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21783227 >In fact, one of the earliest tools that enabled anyone, even children, to author and publish their own interactive dynamic web applications with graphics, text, and even forms and persistent databases, was actually based on HyperCard and the MacHTTP/WebStar web server on the Mac: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16226209 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16226209 >One of the coolest early applications of server side scripting was integrating HyperCard with MacHTTP/WebStar, such that you could publish live interactive HyperCard stacks on the web! Since it was based on good old HyperCard, it was one of the first scriptable web authoring tools that normal people and even children could actually use! MacHTTP / WebStar from StarNine by Chuck Shotton, and LiveCard HyperCard stack publisher: CGI and AppleScript: http://www.drdobbs.com/web-development/cgi-and-applescript/184409741 http://www.drdobbs.com/web-development/cgi-and-applescript/1... >Cal discusses the Macintosh as an Internet platform, then describes how you can use the AppleScript language for writing CGI applications that run on Macintosh servers. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7865263 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7865263 MacHTTP / WebStar from StarNine by Chuck Shotton! He was also VP of Engineering at Quarterdeck, another pioneering company. https://web.archive.org/web/20110705053055/http://www.astronomy.pomona.edu/archeo/WebSTAR%20Doc.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20110705053055/http://www.astron... http://infomotions.com/musings/tricks/manuscript/0800-machttp.html http://infomotions.com/musings/tricks/manuscript/0800-machtt... http://tidbits.com/article/6292 http://tidbits.com/article/6292 >It had an AppleScript / OSA API that let you write handlers for responding to web hits in other languages that supported AppleScript. I used it to integrate ScriptX with the web: http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/lang/scriptx/scriptx-www.html http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/lang/scriptx/scriptx-www.htm... https://medium.com/@donhopkins/1995-apple-world-wide-developers-conference-kaleida-labs-scriptx-demo-64271dd65570 https://medium.com/@donhopkins/1995-apple-world-wide-develop... The coolest thing somebody did with WebStar was to integrate it with HyperCard so you could actually publish live INTERACTIVE HyperCard stacks on the web, that you could see as images you could click on to follow links, and followed by html form elements corresponding to the text fields, radio buttons, checkboxes, drop down menus, scrolling lists, etc in the HyperCard stack that you could use in the browser to interactive with live HyperCard pages! That was the earliest easiest way that non-programmers and even kids could both not just create graphical web pages, but publish live interactive apps on the web! Using HyperCard as a CGI application http://aaa-proteins.uni-graz.at/HyperCGI.html http://aaa-proteins.uni-graz.at/HyperCGI.html https://web.archive.org/web/20021013161709/http://pfhyper.com/hcfaq/hcfaq4.html https://web.archive.org/web/20021013161709/http://pfhyper.co... http://www.drdobbs.com/web-development/cgi-and-applescript/184409741 http://www.drdobbs.com/web-development/cgi-and-applescript/1... https://web.archive.org/web/19990208235151/http://www.royalsoftware.com/descriptions/comments.html https://web.archive.org/web/19990208235151/http://www.royals... What was it actually ever used for? Saving kid's lives, for one thing: >Livecard has exceeded all expectations and allows me to serve a stack 8 years in the making and previously confined to individual hospitals running Apples. A whole Childrens Hospital and University Department of Child Health should now swing in behind me and this product will become core curriculum for our medical course. Your product will save lives starting early 1997. Well done. - Director, Emergency Medicine, Mater Childrens Hospital
somesortofsystm 7y ago
You're totally spot-on with the 'forgotten technology'. Computer-Academia is a society which goes through cyclic periods of ignorance and dominance over industrial standard processes which produce viable exchange with the mass public, i.e. successful companies. Between the 'cool new shit learned in school' and the 'top secret lab tech', there is a lot of re-invention, invention, refactoring, re-discovery, re-research. Alas, the only good framework is the one in front of the user.