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I generally hate the expression "Ahead of its time", but I think that it definitely applies to Hypercard. I've only played a bit with Hypercard, but it's one o

I generally hate the expression "Ahead of its time", but I think that it definitely applies to Hypercard. I've only played a bit with Hypercard, but it's one of those things that feels almost anachronistic; it's hard to believe that something released in 1987 would be as trivial to use and be productive with as Hypercard.

jandrese 5y ago
It's a language that is object oriented without having to teach the programmers any of the theory. The language has a considerable amount of syntactic sugar but makes for some pretty incredible looking code. on mouseUp put "100,100" into pos repeat with x = 1 to the number of card buttons set the location of card button x to pos add 15 to item 1 of pos end repeat end mouseUp
- tombert 5y ago
  That's really cool! Reminds me of some of the crazy stuff you can do with the Lua metatables to get really pretty code (if you are careful).
- kragen 5y ago
  Although I hate to recommend proprietary software, you might be interested in looking at Inform 7, designed for authoring interactive fiction; https://rosettacode.org/wiki/FizzBuzz#Inform_7 https://rosettacode.org/wiki/FizzBuzz#Inform_7 has an example: The space is a room. An item is a kind of thing. In the space are 100 items. To say the name: let the count be the number of items carried by the player; say "[if the count is the count to the nearest 15]fizzbuzz.[otherwise if the count is the count to the nearest 3]fizz.[otherwise if the count is the count to the nearest 5]buzz.[otherwise][the count in words].". To count: if an item is in the space begin; let the next one be a random item in the space; silently try taking the next one; say "[the name]" in sentence case; count; end the story; end if. When play begins: count. Use no scoring.
  - anthk 5y ago
    Inform6 is almost as simple if you are a programmer. I mean, is not "real life language alike" but the IF6 library makes the easiest platform to write a text game as you can set the structure of the game by design, with "literal" objects.
  - mindcrime 5y ago
    One day... yes, one day, Inform7 shall become Open Source.[1] Or so they claim. At this point, I'm not sure which will happen first: 1. Inform7 source is released under an OSS license 2. Patrick Rothfuss finishes the Kingkiller Chronicles book 3 3. George R.R. Martin finishes the final A Song of Fire and Ice book 4. Dean Koontz finishes the Moonlight Bay trilogy book 3 I'm skeptical any of these events will happen in my lifetime. Or the lifetime of the universe we live in. sigh [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20421189 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20421189
jimbokun 5y ago
I worked on interactive software for learning Japanese in Hypercard many years ago. I think it's still the most productive system for building user interfaces I've encountered.

jandrese 5y ago

It's a language that is object oriented without having to teach the programmers any of the theory. The language has a considerable amount of syntactic sugar but makes for some pretty incredible looking code. on mouseUp put "100,100" into pos repeat with x = 1 to the number of card buttons set the location of card button x to pos add 15 to item 1 of pos end repeat end mouseUp

tombert 5y ago
That's really cool! Reminds me of some of the crazy stuff you can do with the Lua metatables to get really pretty code (if you are careful).
kragen 5y ago
Although I hate to recommend proprietary software, you might be interested in looking at Inform 7, designed for authoring interactive fiction; https://rosettacode.org/wiki/FizzBuzz#Inform_7 https://rosettacode.org/wiki/FizzBuzz#Inform_7 has an example: The space is a room. An item is a kind of thing. In the space are 100 items. To say the name: let the count be the number of items carried by the player; say "[if the count is the count to the nearest 15]fizzbuzz.[otherwise if the count is the count to the nearest 3]fizz.[otherwise if the count is the count to the nearest 5]buzz.[otherwise][the count in words].". To count: if an item is in the space begin; let the next one be a random item in the space; silently try taking the next one; say "[the name]" in sentence case; count; end the story; end if. When play begins: count. Use no scoring.
- anthk 5y ago
  Inform6 is almost as simple if you are a programmer. I mean, is not "real life language alike" but the IF6 library makes the easiest platform to write a text game as you can set the structure of the game by design, with "literal" objects.
- mindcrime 5y ago
  One day... yes, one day, Inform7 shall become Open Source.[1] Or so they claim. At this point, I'm not sure which will happen first: 1. Inform7 source is released under an OSS license 2. Patrick Rothfuss finishes the Kingkiller Chronicles book 3 3. George R.R. Martin finishes the final A Song of Fire and Ice book 4. Dean Koontz finishes the Moonlight Bay trilogy book 3 I'm skeptical any of these events will happen in my lifetime. Or the lifetime of the universe we live in. sigh [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20421189 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20421189

jimbokun 5y ago

I worked on interactive software for learning Japanese in Hypercard many years ago. I think it's still the most productive system for building user interfaces I've encountered.