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"This type of plain-language programming makes sense, particularly in an application that was designed specifically for non-programmers." Sweet merciful crap,

"This type of plain-language programming makes sense, particularly in an application that was designed specifically for non-programmers." Sweet merciful crap, no. I loved Hypercard as a kid but I could never get my head around the English-but-not-quite programming style of the script. Any time I've tried to do anything with Applescript over the years, I just end up giving up and doing it some other way. A DSL would be better than this approach, or a language that has a decently smooth learning curve.

jarcane 12y ago
This. I still remember the one and only time I tried doing a scripted app in HyperCard. I spent an entire day constantly fighting with the contextual definitions of keywords, literally playing a Clintonesque game of quibbling over the definition of 'is' and 'it'.
taybin 12y ago
I completely agree. Natural Language style programming with AppleScript is incredibly difficult. I don't think hypertalk was that much better.
- StackLord 12y ago
  As a web developer and someone who programs in a superset of HyperCard (LiveCode) - I must say it was moderately difficult to grasp in the beginning. Strangely enough things that are required for your day job tend to have a way of getting learned. The hardest part for me was not the syntax, but the fact the IDE and the language are so inter-connected. It's actually a fairly quick way of prototyping mobile apps for iOS/Android - which is one of the main things I use it for at work. Though, I am probably incredibly biased. They recently(2012) open sourced the IDE, http://LiveCode.com http://LiveCode.com
- shams93 12y ago
  Actually I still found it easier than Lingo, I wrote a bunch of things while in art school in the 90s but when java applets took off I wound up abandoning hypercard for java.
microtherion 12y ago
Some people used to call HyperTalk “Visual COBOL”
- Animats 12y ago
  Yes. You can write statements which are both valid HyperTalk and COBOL. This is not a good thing. It went downhill from there: Put field 2 of card 54 into field 5 of card 71 You could name fields, but it went visibly slower if you did. There's visual programing, where you drag boxes around and connect them. This comes back every few years. Simple examples look great. Larger program are awful. Blender, the animation system, has a game development system like that. Programs are single huge, messy wiring diagrams. Programming requires lots of zooming and scrolling. There's a reason that IC designers gave up schematics for VHDL.
  - raintrees 12y ago
    Borland's ObjectVision had me jump into a rabbit hole for awhile, until I retreated back into (pre-Visual) FoxPro, as I kept running into limitations of the ObjectVision language.
  - jcl 12y ago
    If you want to see programming-as-carefully-formatted-English taken to the extreme, check out Inform 7, a system for writing interactive fiction. For example, here is the complete source of a game: http://inform7.com/learn/eg/glass/source.txt http://inform7.com/learn/eg/glass/source.txt
    - rspeer 12y ago
      Anyone remember the cryptic document that _why posted in the form of a printer spool [1], years after his disappearance from programming? It was a sort of fictional, surrealist autobiography. [1] http://www.scribd.com/doc/136875051/why-s-complete-printer-spool-as-one-book http://www.scribd.com/doc/136875051/why-s-complete-printer-s... I was grinning madly when I noticed -- in the part where he's exploring an island -- the page written in syntactically valid Inform 7.

jarcane 12y ago

This. I still remember the one and only time I tried doing a scripted app in HyperCard. I spent an entire day constantly fighting with the contextual definitions of keywords, literally playing a Clintonesque game of quibbling over the definition of 'is' and 'it'.

taybin 12y ago

I completely agree. Natural Language style programming with AppleScript is incredibly difficult. I don't think hypertalk was that much better.

StackLord 12y ago
As a web developer and someone who programs in a superset of HyperCard (LiveCode) - I must say it was moderately difficult to grasp in the beginning. Strangely enough things that are required for your day job tend to have a way of getting learned. The hardest part for me was not the syntax, but the fact the IDE and the language are so inter-connected. It's actually a fairly quick way of prototyping mobile apps for iOS/Android - which is one of the main things I use it for at work. Though, I am probably incredibly biased. They recently(2012) open sourced the IDE, http://LiveCode.com http://LiveCode.com
shams93 12y ago
Actually I still found it easier than Lingo, I wrote a bunch of things while in art school in the 90s but when java applets took off I wound up abandoning hypercard for java.

microtherion 12y ago

Some people used to call HyperTalk “Visual COBOL”

Animats 12y ago
Yes. You can write statements which are both valid HyperTalk and COBOL. This is not a good thing. It went downhill from there: Put field 2 of card 54 into field 5 of card 71 You could name fields, but it went visibly slower if you did. There's visual programing, where you drag boxes around and connect them. This comes back every few years. Simple examples look great. Larger program are awful. Blender, the animation system, has a game development system like that. Programs are single huge, messy wiring diagrams. Programming requires lots of zooming and scrolling. There's a reason that IC designers gave up schematics for VHDL.
- raintrees 12y ago
  Borland's ObjectVision had me jump into a rabbit hole for awhile, until I retreated back into (pre-Visual) FoxPro, as I kept running into limitations of the ObjectVision language.
- jcl 12y ago
  If you want to see programming-as-carefully-formatted-English taken to the extreme, check out Inform 7, a system for writing interactive fiction. For example, here is the complete source of a game: http://inform7.com/learn/eg/glass/source.txt http://inform7.com/learn/eg/glass/source.txt
  - rspeer 12y ago
    Anyone remember the cryptic document that _why posted in the form of a printer spool [1], years after his disappearance from programming? It was a sort of fictional, surrealist autobiography. [1] http://www.scribd.com/doc/136875051/why-s-complete-printer-spool-as-one-book http://www.scribd.com/doc/136875051/why-s-complete-printer-s... I was grinning madly when I noticed -- in the part where he's exploring an island -- the page written in syntactically valid Inform 7.