8 ms·

I remember being blown away by my first encounter with a Mac, as a twelve year old kid. After learning how the mouse worked, I started to wonder "how can I wri

I remember being blown away by my first encounter with a Mac, as a twelve year old kid. After learning how the mouse worked, I started to wonder "how can I write a program on this thing?". Every computer I had used before let you type BASIC programs right on the command line. But all the Mac had was an 'interrupt' switch that dropped you into an unfathomable console. It was a very discouraging feeling; it had never occurred to me that there could be a computer that didn't let you write programs.

kalleboo 12y ago
My first interactions with a Mac were through HyperCard[0], which was included with the all the early Macs (basically until Apple sold it off to Claris). Without HyperCard, I would never have become a programmer. HyperCard was very much the BASIC for the Mac, but wildly more powerful and user-friendly. I find it very sad Apple don't ship something like HyperCard with iOS devices. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperCard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperCard
- idlewords 12y ago
  HyperCard was one of those rare products (along with Excel and FileMaker Pro) that made people into programmers without them knowing it. It was astonishing what people were able to put together in HyperCard, and how much sadness there was when Apple finally axed it.
  - rbanffy 12y ago
    A baby unicorn dies every time someone builds an overly complex Excel spreadsheet that should actually be a program.
    - te_chris 12y ago
      Yes, why should people solve problems they have themselves in ways that disagree with our aesthetic?
      - rbanffy 12y ago
        The problem is not how hard it is to get answers, but how hard it is to be sure you actually solved the problem correctly. Have you ever tried to debug a complicated spreadsheet? To validate one? With so many financial institutions basing their decisions on spreadsheets designed in ways that would - or, at the very least, should - horrify even the most incompetent and irresponsible computer programmer, I don't think you understand how serious the issue really is.
  - gilgoomesh 12y ago
    Technically, Apple only axed Hypercard in 2004: http://due-diligence.typepad.com/blog/2004/03/a_eulogy_for_hy.html http://due-diligence.typepad.com/blog/2004/03/a_eulogy_for_h... Being axed by Apple wasn't its problem. Hypercard was already obsolete by the early 1990s for a range of technical and mismanagement reasons: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7275781 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7275781
    - idlewords 12y ago
      I was working in academia at the time it got axed (2004), and you'd be amazed at the number of people quietly depending on it, with no idea that they had actually learned some scripting. Professors I had never even suspected of using a computer were absolutely bereft. Some people had poured vast amounts of work into creating HyperCard stacks, and there was really no viable alternative to point them to. It was heartbreaking to watch.
  - Widdershin 12y ago
    Another one of these product is (or at least was) Game Maker. I only learned to program because I started out making games with the drag and drop tiles, and then moving from there into code.
    - TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
      Sadly, YoYoGames no longer provides a free version. Now tons of hobbyists are stuck on GM 8.0, like myself and the rest of the Gang Garrison 2 team: http://www.ganggarrison.com/ http://www.ganggarrison.com/
      - dragonbonheur 12y ago
        They announced that GameMaker studio was free for the Windows version. https://www.yoyogames.com/news/227 https://www.yoyogames.com/news/227 Some alternatives are Enigma (http://enigma-dev.org/ http://enigma-dev.org/) Or Game Develop (http://www.compilgames.net/ http://www.compilgames.net/)
        TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
        Oh thank god YoYoGames have seen sense and made GM free again. Though, seriously, the damage was already done.
  - porker 12y ago
    What happened to FileMaker Pro? I am too young to have used it, but I often wonder (based on what I heard about it) if we're reinventing it on the web, time and time again.
    - jasoncrawford 12y ago
      Well, it still exists: http://www.filemaker.com/ http://www.filemaker.com/ At its peak, FileMaker did around $100M in annual revenue, and was eventually acquired by Apple. It operates independently. Many people still use it, along with Microsoft Access, and there are still consultants who make a living off of it. FileMaker never really made the transition to the Web, though. (They added “Web publishing” features but, as far as I understand, never became a true cloud app. There are some cloud databases and “app builders” online, such as Zoho Creator, Intuit QuickBase, TrackVia, and Knack HQ (to name just a few). To my knowledge none of them have very wide adoption. IMO the motivation behind all of these is good, but a different approach is needed—which is what we're doing with Fieldbook: https://fieldbookapp.com/demo https://fieldbookapp.com/demo
      - porker 12y ago
        Wow, Fieldbook looks awesome! What are you using as the datastore behind it? And the interface framework - entirely custom or built on AngularJS or similar?
        jasoncrawford 12y ago
        Thanks! It's backed by Mongo. Node server with a Backbone front end. A lot of custom code, though.
- Chapougniard 12y ago
  I remember when Apple really though Hypercard was the future of Mac Programming. But hey, they had several of those since. Fortunately, Hypercard has survived and is a thriving product : Livecode, which has a Mac and Windows version, and can create apps for Mac, Windows, Linux and Web. And quite nice, iOS and Android apps from exactly the same source ! http://livecode.com http://livecode.com
  - TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
    Given you are a new account and this is your only comment, are you perhaps the creator?
    - dalke 12y ago
      Given the 16 previous articles about LiveCode on HN, including the enthusiastic comments at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5287634 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5287634 , and previous comments making essentially the same point as Chapougniard (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7487763#up_7488904 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7487763#up_7488904 for an example), I think it's more likely that you just annoyed a new HN commenter rather than spot a hidden member of the LiveCode development team.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
fit2rule 12y ago
I personally feel that the removal of developer tools as a standard component of the OS has been one of the biggest setbacks for computing - especially teaching computing - in the last few decades. I can understand the commercial reasons - "developers! developers!" monkey-dances not-withstanding - and I can understand the 'consideration of the average user' not needing the tools installed, but I don't agree with it. I think that any OS that doesn't ship with the tools required to make that computer do more work is a crippled, none-OS, and I urge my fellow geeks to disassociate themselves from the elite mode of thought that states that developer tools should only be available for developers. So much serious advance of the state of the art has occurred just because there have been compilers on board when a curious mind first logs on .. I'm immensely saddened to hear of my younger siblings first experience 'with computers' being the panopticon of the iPad. No compiler onboard means its not a computer for you, but rather the person who made it, and this is really frustrating to see younger generations getting conned out of some really powerful features of their lives. Just the hassle of having to sign up to get the devtools is enough to dissuade the curious, and its precisely the curious we need to invite to this party.
- simonh 12y ago
  My take is exactly the opposite. When I was a CS student in the late 80s it was extremely hard to get access to high quality development tools beyond. Yes MS-DOS came with QBASIC, but if you wanted to program in anything more capable such as C or Pascal you were out of luck. Nowadays the highest quality dev tools for any platform are just a free download away. Python, C#, Java, Go, pretty much whatever you want. Eve better, many popular games such as WoW and Minecraft either come with built-in scripting or easily accessible extension and scripting tools. Squeak is awesome and soon you'll be able to program in it without even downloading anything thanks to the HTML5 client. Linux generally comes with a whole ton of dev tools by default, and the Mac is close on it's heels and even has Applescript built in to the GUI layer. There has never been an easier time to get into programming.
- gurkendoktor 12y ago
  My 'first experience with computers' was playing with a Super Nintendo, for many of my friends it was a Gameboy or some other console. The iPad is a lot easier to hack than either of those, just as the iPhone is a lot more developer-friendly than the feature phones before it. It all depends on whether you categorise today's devices as computers or consoles. And I remember how I had to pay lots of €€€ for Delphi and later Visual C++ on Windows; at least the latter is now free! I don't think there is a clear trend in computers becoming more hostile to tinkerers.

kalleboo 12y ago

My first interactions with a Mac were through HyperCard[0], which was included with the all the early Macs (basically until Apple sold it off to Claris). Without HyperCard, I would never have become a programmer. HyperCard was very much the BASIC for the Mac, but wildly more powerful and user-friendly. I find it very sad Apple don't ship something like HyperCard with iOS devices. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperCard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperCard

idlewords 12y ago
HyperCard was one of those rare products (along with Excel and FileMaker Pro) that made people into programmers without them knowing it. It was astonishing what people were able to put together in HyperCard, and how much sadness there was when Apple finally axed it.
- rbanffy 12y ago
  A baby unicorn dies every time someone builds an overly complex Excel spreadsheet that should actually be a program.
  - te_chris 12y ago
    Yes, why should people solve problems they have themselves in ways that disagree with our aesthetic?
    - rbanffy 12y ago
      The problem is not how hard it is to get answers, but how hard it is to be sure you actually solved the problem correctly. Have you ever tried to debug a complicated spreadsheet? To validate one? With so many financial institutions basing their decisions on spreadsheets designed in ways that would - or, at the very least, should - horrify even the most incompetent and irresponsible computer programmer, I don't think you understand how serious the issue really is.
- gilgoomesh 12y ago
  Technically, Apple only axed Hypercard in 2004: http://due-diligence.typepad.com/blog/2004/03/a_eulogy_for_hy.html http://due-diligence.typepad.com/blog/2004/03/a_eulogy_for_h... Being axed by Apple wasn't its problem. Hypercard was already obsolete by the early 1990s for a range of technical and mismanagement reasons: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7275781 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7275781
  - idlewords 12y ago
    I was working in academia at the time it got axed (2004), and you'd be amazed at the number of people quietly depending on it, with no idea that they had actually learned some scripting. Professors I had never even suspected of using a computer were absolutely bereft. Some people had poured vast amounts of work into creating HyperCard stacks, and there was really no viable alternative to point them to. It was heartbreaking to watch.
- Widdershin 12y ago
  Another one of these product is (or at least was) Game Maker. I only learned to program because I started out making games with the drag and drop tiles, and then moving from there into code.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
    Sadly, YoYoGames no longer provides a free version. Now tons of hobbyists are stuck on GM 8.0, like myself and the rest of the Gang Garrison 2 team: http://www.ganggarrison.com/ http://www.ganggarrison.com/
    - dragonbonheur 12y ago
      They announced that GameMaker studio was free for the Windows version. https://www.yoyogames.com/news/227 https://www.yoyogames.com/news/227 Some alternatives are Enigma (http://enigma-dev.org/ http://enigma-dev.org/) Or Game Develop (http://www.compilgames.net/ http://www.compilgames.net/)
      - TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
        Oh thank god YoYoGames have seen sense and made GM free again. Though, seriously, the damage was already done.
- porker 12y ago
  What happened to FileMaker Pro? I am too young to have used it, but I often wonder (based on what I heard about it) if we're reinventing it on the web, time and time again.
  - jasoncrawford 12y ago
    Well, it still exists: http://www.filemaker.com/ http://www.filemaker.com/ At its peak, FileMaker did around $100M in annual revenue, and was eventually acquired by Apple. It operates independently. Many people still use it, along with Microsoft Access, and there are still consultants who make a living off of it. FileMaker never really made the transition to the Web, though. (They added “Web publishing” features but, as far as I understand, never became a true cloud app. There are some cloud databases and “app builders” online, such as Zoho Creator, Intuit QuickBase, TrackVia, and Knack HQ (to name just a few). To my knowledge none of them have very wide adoption. IMO the motivation behind all of these is good, but a different approach is needed—which is what we're doing with Fieldbook: https://fieldbookapp.com/demo https://fieldbookapp.com/demo
    - porker 12y ago
      Wow, Fieldbook looks awesome! What are you using as the datastore behind it? And the interface framework - entirely custom or built on AngularJS or similar?
      - jasoncrawford 12y ago
        Thanks! It's backed by Mongo. Node server with a Backbone front end. A lot of custom code, though.
Chapougniard 12y ago
I remember when Apple really though Hypercard was the future of Mac Programming. But hey, they had several of those since. Fortunately, Hypercard has survived and is a thriving product : Livecode, which has a Mac and Windows version, and can create apps for Mac, Windows, Linux and Web. And quite nice, iOS and Android apps from exactly the same source ! http://livecode.com http://livecode.com
- TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
  Given you are a new account and this is your only comment, are you perhaps the creator?
  - dalke 12y ago
    Given the 16 previous articles about LiveCode on HN, including the enthusiastic comments at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5287634 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5287634 , and previous comments making essentially the same point as Chapougniard (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7487763#up_7488904 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7487763#up_7488904 for an example), I think it's more likely that you just annoyed a new HN commenter rather than spot a hidden member of the LiveCode development team.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

fit2rule 12y ago

I personally feel that the removal of developer tools as a standard component of the OS has been one of the biggest setbacks for computing - especially teaching computing - in the last few decades. I can understand the commercial reasons - "developers! developers!" monkey-dances not-withstanding - and I can understand the 'consideration of the average user' not needing the tools installed, but I don't agree with it. I think that any OS that doesn't ship with the tools required to make that computer do more work is a crippled, none-OS, and I urge my fellow geeks to disassociate themselves from the elite mode of thought that states that developer tools should only be available for developers. So much serious advance of the state of the art has occurred just because there have been compilers on board when a curious mind first logs on .. I'm immensely saddened to hear of my younger siblings first experience 'with computers' being the panopticon of the iPad. No compiler onboard means its not a computer for you, but rather the person who made it, and this is really frustrating to see younger generations getting conned out of some really powerful features of their lives. Just the hassle of having to sign up to get the devtools is enough to dissuade the curious, and its precisely the curious we need to invite to this party.

simonh 12y ago
My take is exactly the opposite. When I was a CS student in the late 80s it was extremely hard to get access to high quality development tools beyond. Yes MS-DOS came with QBASIC, but if you wanted to program in anything more capable such as C or Pascal you were out of luck. Nowadays the highest quality dev tools for any platform are just a free download away. Python, C#, Java, Go, pretty much whatever you want. Eve better, many popular games such as WoW and Minecraft either come with built-in scripting or easily accessible extension and scripting tools. Squeak is awesome and soon you'll be able to program in it without even downloading anything thanks to the HTML5 client. Linux generally comes with a whole ton of dev tools by default, and the Mac is close on it's heels and even has Applescript built in to the GUI layer. There has never been an easier time to get into programming.
gurkendoktor 12y ago
My 'first experience with computers' was playing with a Super Nintendo, for many of my friends it was a Gameboy or some other console. The iPad is a lot easier to hack than either of those, just as the iPhone is a lot more developer-friendly than the feature phones before it. It all depends on whether you categorise today's devices as computers or consoles. And I remember how I had to pay lots of €€€ for Delphi and later Visual C++ on Windows; at least the latter is now free! I don't think there is a clear trend in computers becoming more hostile to tinkerers.