it takes forever because you hit the limits of the system, and you end up having to re-write in a proper programming language.
Using all of HyperCard's extremely powerful high-end facilities, not just the easy-entry ones, I built a school library cataloging, membership and loans system; with (wait for it): asynchronous distributed peer-to-peer network inter-application communication; running on low-end, limited-RAM Macs with their built-in plug-and-play networking; solo; in a few months; including a couple of external commands that I wrote in C as an optimization when I hit those very limits you mention. Sure, by the end every identifier in my scripts was down to one character and I could accurately estimate script byte counts by eye, but none of the frustrations lessened my enthusiasm for this wonderful environment.
The best Java team I ever worked with was about 15-20% as efficient, I reckon, with 8 people working and deploying on top-end Sun gear, and millions per year to spend. Not a fair comparison, of course, one-man-band vs enterprise, but galling nevertheless.
If they're not year-one students, is GUI editing a requirement? If not, how about emacs (and the JDEE in-emacs Java IDE) under GNU screen? You can have multiple remote collaborators in a screen session.
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it takes forever because you hit the limits of the system, and you end up having to re-write in a proper programming language.
Using all of HyperCard's extremely powerful high-end facilities, not just the easy-entry ones, I built a school library cataloging, membership and loans system; with (wait for it): asynchronous distributed peer-to-peer network inter-application communication; running on low-end, limited-RAM Macs with their built-in plug-and-play networking; solo; in a few months; including a couple of external commands that I wrote in C as an optimization when I hit those very limits you mention. Sure, by the end every identifier in my scripts was down to one character and I could accurately estimate script byte counts by eye, but none of the frustrations lessened my enthusiasm for this wonderful environment. The best Java team I ever worked with was about 15-20% as efficient, I reckon, with 8 people working and deploying on top-end Sun gear, and millions per year to spend. Not a fair comparison, of course, one-man-band vs enterprise, but galling nevertheless.
If they're not year-one students, is GUI editing a requirement? If not, how about emacs (and the JDEE in-emacs Java IDE) under GNU screen? You can have multiple remote collaborators in a screen session.