🚀 go-pugleaf

>>In article <6956@ut-ngp.UUCP> osmigo@ut-ngp.UUCP (Ron Morgan) writes:
>>>3. Hypertalk is somewhat overrated. True, it's "easier" than C or Pascal, but
>>>   in no sense of the word is it a "programming language" in the first place.

>In article <3410@husc6.harvard.edu> fry@huma1.UUCP (David Fry) writes:
>>	Exactly what sense of the word (sic) "programming
>>language" are thinking about?  HyperTalk is descended from a
>>respected, high level language (SmallTalk) that is very
>>easy to program in.  If it's not a programming language, what
>>do you think it is?

In article <2116@tekcrl.TEK.COM> eirik@crl.TEK.COM (Eirik Fuller) writes:
>Tell me, have you ever seen smalltalk?  Have you programmed in
>smalltalk?  I find it far easier to believe that you speak from the
>depths of your ignorance on this one, than that you have really used
>smalltalk and still believe this.

>Smalltalk is several orders of magnitude better as a programming
>language than hypertalk.  I would possibly begin to believe otherwise
>if hypercard were implemented in hypertalk, the way that the smalltalk
>environment is implemented in smalltalk.

I'll answer for David.  Yes I've programmed in Smalltalk, in fact I had
a *job* programming in Smalltalk at Xerox PARC.  (Of course, it was
Smalltalk 76 (and a little 72), not Smalltalk 80, but that's a minor cavil.)
I even got briefly to work with Diana Merry, who first implemented overlapping
windows (in Smalltalk).  It's a wonderful language, so wonderful that a lot
of newer languages have borrowed from it, including HyperTalk.

Hypertalk is a simpler language than Smalltalk.  It doesn't have a class
structure, for example.  But it's still quite powerful, and in a few ways
even superior to Smalltalk (fast find, bitmap compression, closeness to
English).  I can whip up a Smalltalk application in a few hours to a few
days.  I can whip up a HyperCard application in a few minutes to a few hours.
That's worth something.

If I want it to run fast, I'll reprogram it in C!  (At least until ParcPlace
lowers their prices.  Ouch!)

-- 
	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."