>Alain : We do both?
Alain,
we'd need wxWindows for both paths, the Python/Perl one, and the Bison one
we're currently doing. It serves both purposes, this means we can do it in
any event.
>Alain : Is Serf open source? Why aren�t we pooling our efforts?
No, Serf is commercial. But although I believe Serf has a great concept, I
think we shouldn't attempt something like that until
a) We have seen Serf and how it performs (any beta-testers can shed light
on this?)
b) We have Interpreter walking and have real-life performance statistics of
how fast it is even with the message-passing hierarchy so we can be sure
it's up to the task
>Alain : We should at least give MetaCard a try, I think.
I didn't say use MetaCard. I just said that they made a good choice when
deciding to go the way of a CISC language, in that then for one (slow)
interpreted command, many (fast) compiled-code instructions are performed,
which gives better performance for commonly recurring things. I.e. you
could sort a field using HyperTalk statements, but a "sort" command is
faster.
>Alain : Yes, compiled code still is faster, but interpreted code will
>always be more flexible. It�s a tradeoff.
The way MC does it, this tradeoff is leveraged a bit. You can still use
many interpreted commands to do something the language didn't allow for,
but for commonly used stuff it'll be faster.
>Alain : So Perl is an option, after all? Do you remember the
>discussions we had several months ago concerning the pros and cons of
>programming with Perl versus programming with C/C++ ? I was promoting
>the Perl option earnestly but I was drowned out by the chorus for
>C/C++. I�m not upset about it at all. I�m just bemused by the fact that
>Perl is re-surfacing now.
No, that's not what we're doing. He's suggesting using an existing Perl
interpreter (which was written in C/C++) and change it to interpret
HyperTalk instead. But as BISON has a much better API for things like this,
and HyperTalk is much more informal than Perl, I think this is not a good
option.
>Uli : I have a feeling that Hypercard is much more structured than we
>think...
>Alain : �HyperCard 2.2 the Book� contains the formal syntax
>specification of HyperTalk in one of its annexes.
Alain, I never said that. I'm a defender of exactly the opposite: HyperTalk
is, for a programming language, very informal. Yes, there is some basic
grammar and syntax, but HT has a different structure from other languages.
E.g. a C++ syntax would be much simpler than HyperTalk syntax. If we tried
to press HyperTalk into a formal Syntax, we'd end up where Applescript is
now.
Cheers,
-- M. Uli Kusterer
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