Why Was Hypercard Killed?

theodp writes "Steve Jobs took the secret to his grave, but Stanislav Datskovskiy offers some interesting and illustrated speculation on why HyperCard had to die. 'Jobs was almost certainly familiar with HyperCard and its capabilities,' writes Datskovskiy. 'And he killed it anyway. Wouldn't you love to know why? Here's a clue: Apple never again brought to market anything resembling HyperCard. Despite frequent calls to do so. Despite a more-or-less guaranteed and lively market. And I will cautiously predict that it never will again. The reason for this is that HyperCard is an echo of a different world. One where the distinction between the "use" and "programming" of a computer has been weakened and awaits near-total erasure. A world where the personal computer is a mind-amplifier, and not merely an expensive video telephone. A world in which Apple's walled garden aesthetic has no place.' Slashdotters have bemoaned the loss of HyperCard over the past decade, but Datskovskiy ends his post on a keep-hope-alive note, saying: 'Contemplate the fact that what has been built once could probably be built again.' Where have you gone, Bill Atkinson, a nation of potential programmers turns its lonely eyes to you."

Comments

Let keep software cleaner.

[jellomizer]

Hypercard, Basic, Access....
Giving non-programmers access to a easy to use programming language is a bad idea. The end user feels empowered, and yes can get more done. This is good for your home PC. But Business the small ones and Large Ones get average non-programmer making a program. It gets popular, it doesn't scale, data get corrupt and they loose money and they complain to the maker of such a tool that will allow a business to have hundreds of files corrupted because this simple tool to make quick programs spanned and became used by hundreds of people at once.

Then they bring it to a real programmer and has to redo everything and bitch an moan to him that it is too expensive and why are using such a tool that takes longer to develop....

I am not trying to be snotty, but average Joe user shouldn't be making programs even when they can, unless they have some sort of training or is expected to do it full time.