🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <6956@ut-ngp.UUCP> osmigo@ut-ngp.UUCP (Ron Morgan) writes:
[A bunch of negative stuff saying why HyperCard isn't as good as X, Y, and Z.]

I've read all the reviews of HyperCard now.  They range from "Overly hyped
trash" to "The biggest revolution since the PC".  Neither of these extremes
is correct.  In fact, only one person said anything even halfway intelligent
about HyperCard (other than Atkinson himself on Computer Chronicles), and
that was Douglas Adams (author of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, etc.) in
his MacUser article.  Perhaps this will answer Ron's complaints:

"So why all the fuss about a program that is a less powerful visual database
 than Business Filevision?  A less powerful painting tool than SuperPaint or
 GraphicWorks?  A less powerful hypertext editor than Guide?  A less powerful
 object-oriented programming language than Smalltalk?  A less powerful file
 manager than the Finder?"

[I would add: a less powerful language-directed editor than Emacs.]

"Well, I think it occupies the same niche in the evolution of software as human
 beings do in the evolution of life.  A human can't run as fast as a horse,
 can't climb trees as well as a monkey, can't swim as well as a fish, hear as
 well as a dog or see as well as a cat.  But we can swim better than a monkey
 and run faster than a fish.  If we need to go as fast as a horse, we can ride
 one.  If we need to go faster still we can build a car or an aeroplane or use
 one that someone else has built. ...

"In other words, HyperCard is a program that functions in the same way that
 human beings do.  It can turn its hand to any kind of task at any moment and
 do it as well as most tasks actualy need.  And if the task is beyond it,
 HyperCard can use the phone, it can go for a ride on Excel, and it knows where
 Illustrator is kept.

I should probably add that I've been using HyperCard for a week, and I'm in
love, even though the person who let me copy it forgot to give me the Phone
and Address stacks and several other major pieces.  It didn't matter.  I
recreated them myself in a couple of hours.  Now that I have the "official"
Address stack, I'm just going to throw it out, because the one I wrote is
better (for *MY* purposes); for example, it's smarter about area codes and
dialing 1.  I've ripped out the rather cheesy Periodic Table that came with,
and spliced in not 1 but 2 different stacks of the elements.  Tonight I'll
link them together with background buttons, so I can jump between them; I
expect that this will take about 15 minutes.  Though the process is just begun,
I can see that HyperCard will let me customize an information environment
to my liking, and that I can grow with it for years to come.

One bad thing: I found Goodman's "Complete" HyperCard Manual to be anything
but.  It spends several hundred pages spelling out in excruciating detail
things that any HyperCard user will figure out in the first half hour of
playing with the program, and totally ignores questions like "How do I write
an XFCN resource for a HyperCard stack and install it?"  I admit this isn't
exactly a beginner's question, but now I'm going to have to buy *ANOTHER*
book for that.  If and when one becomes available.  Thanks, Danny. :-(

-- 
	Howard A. Landman
	{oliveb,hplabs}!intelca!mipos3!cpocd2!howard
	howard%cpocd2.intel.com@RELAY.CS.NET
	"I'm sorry, Dave, but I can't do that."