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It's Time To Revive Hypercard
HughPickens.com writes HyperCard, an application program and programming tool released for the Apple Macintosh in 1987, represented the 'computing for the people' philosophy that enabled users to go past the pre-built software that came on their machines, and to program and build software of their own. "Mac users could use Hypercard to build their own mini-programs to balance their taxes, manage sports statistics, make music – all kinds of individualized software that would be useful (or fun) for individual users." Now Jer Thorp writes that the end of HyperCard left a huge gap that desperately needs to be filled – a space for an easy to use, intuitive tool that will once again let average computer users make their own tools. According to Throp, this type of plain-language programming makes sense, particularly in an application that was designed specifically for non-programmers. "I find the largest concern for learners to be not with the conceptual hurdles involved in writing a program, but with obscure and confusing syntax requirements. I would love to be able to teach HyperTalk to my students, as a smooth on-road to more complex languages like JavaScript, Java or C++." By putting the tools of creation into the hands of the broader userbase, we would allow for the creation of ultra-specific personalized apps that, aside from a few exceptions, don't exist today."
HyperTalk wasn't just easy, it was also fairly powerful. Complex object structures could be built to handle complicated tasks, and the base language could be expanded by a variety of available external commands and functions (XCMDs and XFCNs, respectively), which were precursors to the modern plug-in. But ultimately, HyperCard would disappear from Mac computers by the mid-nineties, eclipsed by web browsers and other applications which it had itself inspired. The last copy of HyperCard was sold by Apple in 2004. "One thing that's changed in the intervening decades is that the hobbyist has largely gone by the wayside. Now you're either a user or a full-fledged developer, and the gulf is wider than ever," writes Peter Cohen. "There's really nothing like it today, and I think the Mac is lesser for it."
HyperTalk wasn't just easy, it was also fairly powerful. Complex object structures could be built to handle complicated tasks, and the base language could be expanded by a variety of available external commands and functions (XCMDs and XFCNs, respectively), which were precursors to the modern plug-in. But ultimately, HyperCard would disappear from Mac computers by the mid-nineties, eclipsed by web browsers and other applications which it had itself inspired. The last copy of HyperCard was sold by Apple in 2004. "One thing that's changed in the intervening decades is that the hobbyist has largely gone by the wayside. Now you're either a user or a full-fledged developer, and the gulf is wider than ever," writes Peter Cohen. "There's really nothing like it today, and I think the Mac is lesser for it."
Apple did a good job of blasting macintoshes into classrooms. i couldnt afford any computer as a kid. i was poor. but the precious times at school on the computers there shifted my skillset and made it great. i did years late to the party, scrape together money for an apple IIc. basic was my first coding language, hypercard came a bit later but it was a nice easy to use tool. I think we should bring it (or something like it) back, for all platforms. an OSS hypercardish thing for sure.
So we shouldn't have easy-to-use tools for people to LEARN how to program? Or for people (including kids) who never thought about programming, but took interest in it only after writing some software using an easy-to-use tool?
I started using HyperCard in 1990, in grade 9 after-school computer class. I loved it. I've been writing code ever since.
Get off your high-and-mighty "professionals are the only ones who can do things" box. Just because you might have a degree, doesn't mean you know your face from your ass when it comes to code compared to some there people who don't. Just sayin'.
It's fairly trivial to learn a language at a decent level. We have a lot of languages that abstract away all the "hard" stuff like OS interaction and memory management. Take Java. Take C#. There is literally an object for EVERYTHING you could possibly ponder doing. You dump some values into that blackbox, it does its magic and presto, result.
The hard part of creating software is designing it. And no environment can take that part out of your hands. There is simply no way some piece of software could magically read your mind and produce it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Why couldn't a new incarnation of something like Hypercard be cross platform.
I am not familiar with Hypercard (my entry into programming was via Basic first on the ZX Spectrum and later on the Apple IIe), but I would argue that if is was as great at easing lay peoples entry into programming as some claim, then we should rather exert more effort in making a new incarnation of Hypercard that is cross platform, rather than in trying to convince people that second best is better because it is cross platform.
This is nonsense. I learned a little programming back in chemistry undergrad when they decided to use x-ray diffraction calculations to teach us some FORTRAN. I've been programming here and there since. Some of it has even been useful. I wrote a number of HyperCards back in the day and really liked the environment. It was quick and easy to put together a nice little program for specific tasks. There was a low barrier to entry and it was easy to make useful things that you could never find an IT whiz to do for you.
Here's the problem. It's a lot easier and more likely to happen that a chemist learns a little programming to get a job done than to try to teach chemistry to a programmer and get his management to approve him spending the time. If a project ever gets escalated to where "real' programmers are needed, the scientists can, at least, have realistic expectations and do a better job explaining the problem. I've helped with the design of data models, which greatly lowered a project's complexity, because I knew a lot more about how the data was used.
I have a good knowledge of my limitations. I now have a pretty good knowledge of yours except that I don't know who you are.
Professionals with years or even decades of experience have enough trouble writing secure software.
And just where do these "professionals" who can't write secure software get these years or decades of experience??
It's even worse when they use "beginner-friendly" languages like PHP, Ruby (with Ruby on Rails), and JavaScript. These languages are totally shit, and end up promoting buggy, insecure code.
I don't know PHP or Ruby, but javascript is in no way "beginner-friendly". I'd been coding in BASIC, assembly, xBase (various dialects), NOMAD, and a couple I can't remember (I'm getting old) for well over a decade when I needed javascript.
Javascript is crap. Often useful and necessary crap, but still crap.
When these amateurs try to write code in any sort of a business or professional setting, it usually ends up being the IT department or professional software developers who get to maintain the crap code in the end.
It's true that someone who thinks he knows what he's doing but doesn't can really screw a project up, an idiot I worked with who thought he knew dBase almost cost us a ten million dollar Federal grant by removing some columns in some tables in an application I wrote. I was able to make it work anyway.
Asimov got it right in Foundation; those who know little and are aware of their ignorance aren't dangerous, it's those who think they know but don't that are.
But I was mostly self-taught, only taking classes after I'd been programming for years, and few of the classes taught me anything I hadn't already learned from reading hundreds of books on the subject and practicing.
And we can't forget how these half-assed amateurs often start "contributing to" (a.k.a. destroying) open source projects. Thanks to them, we have disasters like GNOME 3, where instead of trying to make efficient, effective software, they just ended up trying to make a shitty, half-assed copy of their warped understanding of OS X.
It's not that they're shitty programmers, it's that they're shitty designers, and the professionals at Microsoft are no better; Windows 8, anyone? And whose code is the least secure? Yep, your fellow professionals at Microsoft with their warped "understanding" of UI, just like the GNOME devs.
We shouldn't promote the idea of them getting involved with software development. We should discourage it!
No, we should develop easier to use tools. The languages and compilers you professionals are writing suck donkey ass.
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