Re: The case for not trying to be so English-like

[Bob Sneidar via use-livecode]

I aced grammar in grade school, only because I recognized that the trick was 
not to understand the rules, but to memorize the exceptions. I told my teacher 
once that English seems to have more exceptions than rules. :-)

Bob S


> On Apr 14, 2018, at 19:39 , Mark Wieder via use-livecode 
>  wrote:
> 
> Hah! or, why hangover is one word...
> 
> https://lithub.com/attention-grammar-pedants-the-english-language-isnt-logical/
> 
> -- 
> Mark Wieder
> ahsoftw...@gmail.com


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The case for not trying to be so English-like

[Francis Nugent Dixon via use-livecode]

Hi, Mark,

Very interesting was your post. And to reciprocate, will I add a few ideas !

I don't sleep - I listen to "BBC World Service" during many long nights. 
Fascinating!
It covers a multitude of affairs (World-Wide). I listen to it on WiFi Channels.

A recent post led me to the following, starting with the word "Dictionary", and
then went much further, talking (explaining) about the English Language !

I think (hope) that you will find this sustaining !  . Section :  "Plain 
English" !

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03j4lgg/episodes/player.

Six podcasts (about 15 minutes, each) about the English Language.

If you like it, please let me know - I love English, but I also learned to love 
French,
simply because LANGUAGE is our only attempt at communicating with others.

BBC World Services is the finest radio service that I have ever encountered !

Best Regards

-Francis
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The case for not trying to be so English-like

[Mark Wieder via use-livecode]

Hah! or, why hangover is one word...

https://lithub.com/attention-grammar-pedants-the-english-language-isnt-logical/

--
 Mark Wieder
 ahsoftw...@gmail.com

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OT: English-like redux

[Mark Wieder via use-livecode]

--
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 ahsoftw...@gmail.com

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Re: English Like?

[Richmond Mathewson via use-livecode]

"The Colonies" . . . err . . . Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, the 
Falklands, Gibraltar and St. Helena . . .


Or do you mean the erstwhile colonies? And how erstwhile do you mean?

The North American Colonies . . . um.

As LiveCode is made in a current English Colony (Scotland) but seems to 
adhere to English usage according
to an erstwhile colony (USA), somewhere, somehow this argument doesn't 
hold water at all.


Probably what is needed is a colonoscopy.

Richmond.


On 5/26/17 1:42 pm, Roger Eller via use-livecode wrote:

I do not profess to be a professor of English, Mike.  I must say though, I
have never felt felt that felt as soft as the felt at Mr. Felt's felt
factory.

On May 25, 2017 9:41 PM, "Mike Kerner via use-livecode" <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:


NO!  NO!  NO!  NO!  NO!  NO!
I understand that inside the Colonies, the punctuation goes inside the
quotation marks, and outside the Colonies, the punctuation goes outside the
quotation marks.  Just because this thread is being read and replied to
from both inside and outside the Colonies does not give you the right to
put the punctuation in both places.  You, Sir, are guilty of the worst
foible of all.  You may not have it both ways.

On Thu, May 25, 2017 at 9:23 PM, Roger Eller via use-livecode <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:


Were would you use "box" as a synonym (if it were one)?  Is it the same

as

"rectangle" or "ask/answer".  End users often tell me, "a box popped up

on

my screen.", not a prompt, or a message.  Next, they proceed to tell me
what it said.

ME: "You're telling me, there was a _talking box_ on your screen?".

~Roger

On May 24, 2017 5:49 PM, "Mark Wieder via use-livecode" <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:

On 05/24/2017 05:43 AM, Mike Kerner via use-livecode wrote:


One of the other things that the xtalk languages have that makes them

more

appealing is synonyms




--
  Mark Wieder
  ahsoftw...@gmail.com


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--
On the first day, God created the heavens and the Earth
On the second day, God created the oceans.
On the third day, God put the animals on hold for a few hours,
and did a little diving.
And God said, "This is good."
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Re: English Like?

[Roger Eller via use-livecode]

I do not profess to be a professor of English, Mike.  I must say though, I
have never felt felt that felt as soft as the felt at Mr. Felt's felt
factory.

On May 25, 2017 9:41 PM, "Mike Kerner via use-livecode" <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> NO!  NO!  NO!  NO!  NO!  NO!
> I understand that inside the Colonies, the punctuation goes inside the
> quotation marks, and outside the Colonies, the punctuation goes outside the
> quotation marks.  Just because this thread is being read and replied to
> from both inside and outside the Colonies does not give you the right to
> put the punctuation in both places.  You, Sir, are guilty of the worst
> foible of all.  You may not have it both ways.
>
> On Thu, May 25, 2017 at 9:23 PM, Roger Eller via use-livecode <
> use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:
>
> > Were would you use "box" as a synonym (if it were one)?  Is it the same
> as
> > "rectangle" or "ask/answer".  End users often tell me, "a box popped up
> on
> > my screen.", not a prompt, or a message.  Next, they proceed to tell me
> > what it said.
> >
> > ME: "You're telling me, there was a _talking box_ on your screen?".
> >
> > ~Roger
> >
> > On May 24, 2017 5:49 PM, "Mark Wieder via use-livecode" <
> > use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 05/24/2017 05:43 AM, Mike Kerner via use-livecode wrote:
> >
> > > One of the other things that the xtalk languages have that makes them
> > more
> > > appealing is synonyms
> > >
> >
> > 
> >
> > --
> >  Mark Wieder
> >  ahsoftw...@gmail.com
> >
> >
> > ___
> > use-livecode mailing list
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> > subscription preferences:
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> >
>
>
>
> --
> On the first day, God created the heavens and the Earth
> On the second day, God created the oceans.
> On the third day, God put the animals on hold for a few hours,
>and did a little diving.
> And God said, "This is good."
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Re: English Like?

[Mike Kerner via use-livecode]

NO!  NO!  NO!  NO!  NO!  NO!
I understand that inside the Colonies, the punctuation goes inside the
quotation marks, and outside the Colonies, the punctuation goes outside the
quotation marks.  Just because this thread is being read and replied to
from both inside and outside the Colonies does not give you the right to
put the punctuation in both places.  You, Sir, are guilty of the worst
foible of all.  You may not have it both ways.

On Thu, May 25, 2017 at 9:23 PM, Roger Eller via use-livecode <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> Were would you use "box" as a synonym (if it were one)?  Is it the same as
> "rectangle" or "ask/answer".  End users often tell me, "a box popped up on
> my screen.", not a prompt, or a message.  Next, they proceed to tell me
> what it said.
>
> ME: "You're telling me, there was a _talking box_ on your screen?".
>
> ~Roger
>
> On May 24, 2017 5:49 PM, "Mark Wieder via use-livecode" <
> use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:
>
> On 05/24/2017 05:43 AM, Mike Kerner via use-livecode wrote:
>
> > One of the other things that the xtalk languages have that makes them
> more
> > appealing is synonyms
> >
>
> 
>
> --
>  Mark Wieder
>  ahsoftw...@gmail.com
>
>
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-- 
On the first day, God created the heavens and the Earth
On the second day, God created the oceans.
On the third day, God put the animals on hold for a few hours,
   and did a little diving.
And God said, "This is good."
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Re: English Like?

[Roger Eller via use-livecode]

Were would you use "box" as a synonym (if it were one)?  Is it the same as
"rectangle" or "ask/answer".  End users often tell me, "a box popped up on
my screen.", not a prompt, or a message.  Next, they proceed to tell me
what it said.

ME: "You're telling me, there was a _talking box_ on your screen?".

~Roger

On May 24, 2017 5:49 PM, "Mark Wieder via use-livecode" <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:

On 05/24/2017 05:43 AM, Mike Kerner via use-livecode wrote:

> One of the other things that the xtalk languages have that makes them more
> appealing is synonyms
>



-- 
 Mark Wieder
 ahsoftw...@gmail.com


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Re: English Like?

[Stephen Barncard via use-livecode]

On Thu, May 25, 2017 at 2:24 PM, J. Landman Gay via use-livecode <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> It will become blindingly clear to you in a couple of years who I will
> have tested it on.
>

and don't forget dangling participles.

sqb

--
Stephen Barncard - Sebastopol Ca. USA -
mixstream.org
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Re: English Like?

[Tore Nilsen via use-livecode]

I have on several occasions propagated this list to my computer science 
students. Now I wonder whether it had not been just as appropriate to tell my 
English students that they would benefit from joining this list. 


Tore Nilsen

> 25. mai 2017 kl. 23.35 skrev Dr. Hawkins via use-livecode 
> :
> 
> On Thu, May 25, 2017 at 2:24 PM, J. Landman Gay via use-livecode <
> use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:
> 
>> It will become blindingly clear to you in a couple of years who I will
>> have tested it on.
> 
> 
> You forgot to gratuitously split an infinitive . . .
> 
> -- 
> Dr. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq.
> (702) 508-8462
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Re: English Like?

[Dr. Hawkins via use-livecode]

On Thu, May 25, 2017 at 2:24 PM, J. Landman Gay via use-livecode <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> It will become blindingly clear to you in a couple of years who I will
> have tested it on.


You forgot to gratuitously split an infinitive . . .

-- 
Dr. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq.
(702) 508-8462
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Re: English Like?

[J. Landman Gay via use-livecode]

It will become blindingly clear to you in a couple of years who I will 
have tested it on.


On 5/25/17 3:51 PM, Bob Sneidar via use-livecode wrote:

Seriously. This is what most people who think they know about time travel do not get. 
Given time travel backwards 4 hours, if you do not ALSO go back in space, the first thing 
you will notice is how mind bogglingly cold it is, and shortly thereafter that there is 
no air to breath, and if you survive long enough in that state, you will have the joy of 
watching the Planet Earth come barrelling towards you at roughly 1,000 MPH and scattering 
your ashes about as you burn up in the atmosphere, while some kid in New Mexico says, 
"Look mommy! A shooting star!!"

Obviously Jacque thought of this... or experimented on someone else first.

Bob S

  

On May 25, 2017, at 12:52 , J. Landman Gay via use-livecode 
 wrote:

You have to go back in space too, it's the only way to make "top" turn into 
"left".



--
Jacqueline Landman Gay | jac...@hyperactivesw.com
HyperActive Software   | http://www.hyperactivesw.com

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Re: English Like?

[Keith Martin via use-livecode]

On 25 May 2017, at 20:10, Bob Sneidar via use-livecode wrote:

I almost ace'd grammar in grade school, but I kept complaining that 
the English language had more exceptions than it had actual rules.


Sounds like you *should* have aced it. :D

k
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Re: English Like?

[Dr. Hawkins via use-livecode]

On Thu, May 25, 2017 at 1:46 PM, Mark Wieder via use-livecode <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> On 05/25/2017 01:23 PM, Mike Kerner via use-livecode wrote:
>
>> Conjunctions should not be used as the first word in a sentence.
>>
>
> You shouldn't put sentences in passive voice.


It's not his fault; the sentence was written that way.


-- 
Dr. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq.
(702) 508-8462
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Re: English Like?

[Bob Sneidar via use-livecode]

Oh right. 

Bob S

> On May 25, 2017, at 13:14 , Richmond Mathewson via use-livecode 
>  wrote:
> 
> making a container (but NOT a solid object).


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Re: English Like?

[Bob Sneidar via use-livecode]

Seriously. This is what most people who think they know about time travel do 
not get. Given time travel backwards 4 hours, if you do not ALSO go back in 
space, the first thing you will notice is how mind bogglingly cold it is, and 
shortly thereafter that there is no air to breath, and if you survive long 
enough in that state, you will have the joy of watching the Planet Earth come 
barrelling towards you at roughly 1,000 MPH and scattering your ashes about as 
you burn up in the atmosphere, while some kid in New Mexico says, "Look mommy! 
A shooting star!!"  

Obviously Jacque thought of this... or experimented on someone else first. 

Bob S

 
> On May 25, 2017, at 12:52 , J. Landman Gay via use-livecode 
>  wrote:
> 
> You have to go back in space too, it's the only way to make "top" turn into 
> "left".
> 
> On 5/25/17 2:05 PM, Bob Sneidar via use-livecode wrote:
> 


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Re: English Like?

[Mark Wieder via use-livecode]

On 05/25/2017 01:23 PM, Mike Kerner via use-livecode wrote:

Conjunctions should not be used as the first word in a sentence.


You shouldn't put sentences in passive voice.

--
 Mark Wieder
 ahsoftw...@gmail.com

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Re: English Like?

[Dr. Hawkins via use-livecode]

On Thu, May 25, 2017 at 1:23 PM, Mike Kerner via use-livecode <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> Conjunctions should not be used as the first word in a sentence.


It was the type of grammar up with which I shall not put!


-- 
Dr. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq.
(702) 508-8462
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Re: English Like?

[Mike Kerner via use-livecode]

Conjunctions should not be used as the first word in a sentence.

On Thu, May 25, 2017 at 4:19 PM, Dr. Hawkins via use-livecode <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> On Thu, May 25, 2017 at 12:10 PM, Bob Sneidar via use-livecode <
> use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:
>
> > I almost ace'd grammar in grade school, but I kept complaining that the
> > English language had more exceptions than it had actual rules.
> >
>
> And we like it that way!
>
> :)
>
>
> --
> Dr. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq.
> (702) 508-8462
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> use-livecode@lists.runrev.com
> Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your
> subscription preferences:
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-- 
On the first day, God created the heavens and the Earth
On the second day, God created the oceans.
On the third day, God put the animals on hold for a few hours,
   and did a little diving.
And God said, "This is good."
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Re: English Like?

[Dr. Hawkins via use-livecode]

On Thu, May 25, 2017 at 12:10 PM, Bob Sneidar via use-livecode <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> I almost ace'd grammar in grade school, but I kept complaining that the
> English language had more exceptions than it had actual rules.
>

And we like it that way!

:)


-- 
Dr. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq.
(702) 508-8462
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Re: English Like?

[Richmond Mathewson via use-livecode]

Quite.

I never drink vodka.

But a "box" is not a BOX, and more than a "button" on a computer screen 
has anything whatsoever to do

with buttons on my radio.

If I drink Rakia (the Bulgarian homologue of Whisky) I can feel this 
intuitively.


I was not so daft as to use the word BOX without quotation marks as, 
oddly enough, I am aware that a box is often
an object consisting of 5 or six rectangles making a container (but NOT 
a solid object).


When writing about a "box" on a screen, knowing that everything on a 
computer screen is part of some

gloriously extended metaphor I use quotation marks.

Right, I'm off for a modest glass of rakia and a slightly more generous 
9 hours sleep.


Richmond.

On 5/25/17 10:13 pm, Bob Sneidar via use-livecode wrote:

Technically, a box is a 3 dimentional object made of 6 rectangles each joined 
at the corners to form a solid object. If there are one of those on your screen 
and it's talking to you, I'd lay off the kimche for a bit and get some sleep. 
Oh, and when drinking vodka, don't eat the worm!!!

Bob S



On May 25, 2017, at 05:12 , Richmond Mathewson via use-livecode 
 wrote:

If the "box" is just a rectangle then it is probably some sort of modeless 
window,

if the "box" is 'talking' to me then it's an ask/answer thing (which have 
always struck me as
labelled the wrong way round).


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Re: English Like?

[J. Landman Gay via use-livecode]

You have to go back in space too, it's the only way to make "top" turn 
into "left".


On 5/25/17 2:05 PM, Bob Sneidar via use-livecode wrote:

In Jacque's Time Travel Stack, it's counter-clockwise, but only when you go 
back in time.

Bob S



On May 24, 2017, at 13:41 , Scott Rossi via use-livecode 
 wrote:

@Mark — the sequence/direction is clockwise, if that helps.  So top -> left… 
doesn’t work.

Scott Rossi
Creative Director
Tactile Media, UX/UI Design


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--
Jacqueline Landman Gay | jac...@hyperactivesw.com
HyperActive Software   | http://www.hyperactivesw.com


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Re: English Like?

[Mark Wieder via use-livecode]

On 05/25/2017 12:08 PM, Bob Sneidar via use-livecode wrote:

Okay you copied that from an online encyclopedia!


A couple of them, actually. Pasted the most interesting parts together. 
You didn't really think I got that out of my own head, did you?


--
 Mark Wieder
 ahsoftw...@gmail.com

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Re: English Like?

[Bob Sneidar via use-livecode]

Technically, a box is a 3 dimentional object made of 6 rectangles each joined 
at the corners to form a solid object. If there are one of those on your screen 
and it's talking to you, I'd lay off the kimche for a bit and get some sleep. 
Oh, and when drinking vodka, don't eat the worm!!!

Bob S


> On May 25, 2017, at 05:12 , Richmond Mathewson via use-livecode 
>  wrote:
> 
> If the "box" is just a rectangle then it is probably some sort of modeless 
> window,
> 
> if the "box" is 'talking' to me then it's an ask/answer thing (which have 
> always struck me as
> labelled the wrong way round).


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Re: English Like?

[Bob Sneidar via use-livecode]

I almost ace'd grammar in grade school, but I kept complaining that the English 
language had more exceptions than it had actual rules. 

Bob S


> On May 25, 2017, at 02:54 , Keith Martin via use-livecode 
>  wrote:
> 
> Speaking as a university lecturer who teaches LC to graphic design students 
> from time to time, I can absolutely attest to the benefits of the 
> 'English-like' qualities of xTalk. They get it, they can work things out, 
> they can use it to create *their own* basic tools and toys, and this after 
> just one afternoon.


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Re: English Like?

[Bob Sneidar via use-livecode]

Okay you copied that from an online encyclopedia! 

Bob S


> On May 24, 2017, at 14:47 , Mark Wieder via use-livecode 
>  wrote:
> 
> > Syntax is an emotive issue (I could beat Python to death with some of the 
> > decisions they have made about syntax - but yet I still use it and slightly 
> > enjoy doing so for the purposes I use it for) - but it is not the 
> > be-all-and-end-all.
> 
> I could say the same for any of the computer languages I use.
> And not just computer languages- the various forms of the irregular verbs for 
> instance...
> 
> Old English beon, beom, bion "be, exist, come to be, become, happen," from 
> Proto-Germanic *biju- "I am, I will be." This "b-root" is from PIE root 
> *bheue- "to be, exist, grow," and in addition to the words in English it 
> yielded German present first and second person singular (bin, bist, from Old 
> High German bim "I am," bist "thou art"), Latin perfective tenses of esse 
> (fui "I was," etc.), Old Church Slavonic byti "be," Greek phu- "become," Old 
> Irish bi'u "I am," Lithuanian bu'ti "to be," Russian byt' "to be," etc.
> 
> The modern verb to be in its entirety represents the merger of two 
> once-distinct verbs, the "b-root" represented by be and the am/was verb, 
> which was itself a conglomerate. Roger Lass ("Old English") describes the 
> verb as "a collection of semantically related paradigm fragments," while 
> Weekley calls it "an accidental conglomeration from the different Old English 
> dial[ect]s." It is the most irregular verb in Modern English and the most 
> common. Collective in all Germanic languages, it has eight different forms in 
> Modern English:
> 
> BE (infinitive, subjunctive, imperative)
> AM (present 1st person singular)
> ARE (present 2nd person singular and all plural)
> IS (present 3rd person singular)
> WAS (past 1st and 3rd persons singular)
> WERE (past 2nd person singular, all plural; subjunctive)
> BEING (progressive & present participle; gerund)
> BEEN (perfect participle).
> 
> Old English am had two plural forms: 1. sind/sindon, sie and 2. earon/aron. 
> The s- form (also used in the subjunctive) fell from English in the early 
> 13c. (though its cousin continues in German sind, the 3rd person plural of 
> "to be") and was replaced by forms of be, but aron (see are) continued, and 
> as am and be merged it encroached on some uses that previously had belonged 
> to be. By the early 1500s it had established its place in standard English.
> 
> That but this blow Might be the be all, and the end all.
> ["Macbeth" I.vii.5]
> 
> -- 
> Mark Wieder
> ahsoftw...@gmail.com


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Re: English Like?

[Bob Sneidar via use-livecode]

In Jacque's Time Travel Stack, it's counter-clockwise, but only when you go 
back in time. 

Bob S


> On May 24, 2017, at 13:41 , Scott Rossi via use-livecode 
>  wrote:
> 
> @Mark — the sequence/direction is clockwise, if that helps.  So top -> left… 
> doesn’t work.
> 
> Scott Rossi 
> Creative Director 
> Tactile Media, UX/UI Design

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Re: English Like?

[J. Landman Gay via use-livecode]

On May 25, 2017 3:03:01 AM Mark Waddingham via use-livecode 
 wrote:



On 2017-05-24 19:14, Mark Wieder via use-livecode wrote:

On 05/24/2017 08:03 AM, Mark Waddingham via use-livecode wrote:


Anyway, I shall now get off my (small?) soap-box. Again this is a
discussion, there are lots of reasons why people don't choose LiveCode
and we try our very best to determine them, and deal with them. There
are certainly easier ones to tackle than adding a new 'syntax style'
and of course we intend to address those first...


I just want to say that in spite of all the verbiage that showed up
overnight, this has been a most enjoyable thread to wake up to.


Heh - the verbiage being mostly my fault ;)

It is amazing how your mind can wander whilst staring at a terminal
watching build instructions fly by!


I really appreciate watching your mind wander. And you talk slower in print 
too. :)


--
Jacqueline Landman Gay | jac...@hyperactivesw.com
HyperActive Software   | http://www.hyperactivesw.com



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Re: English Like?

[Richmond Mathewson via use-livecode]

If the "box" is just a rectangle then it is probably some sort of 
modeless window,


if the "box" is 'talking' to me then it's an ask/answer thing (which 
have always struck me as

labelled the wrong way round).

Personally I tend to go for "thingy", this is so polysemantic there is 
absolutely no need to worry about

whether it is being ambiguous or not; because it is.

The "unfortunate" 'fact' is that current computers do not function like 
people and
the other way round, and despite all the razzmatazz about fuzzy logic . 
. . .


While there may be computers that can fool people into thinking they are 
humans over a phoneline,
the "real" sex dolls the BBC have been burbling on about recently [ 
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39859939 ]
is unlikely to fool anyone: although, come to think of things, 
propositioning people tends to be fairly unambiguous.


Richmond.

On 5/25/17 2:55 pm, Roger Eller via use-livecode wrote:

Were would you use "box" as a synonym (if it were one)?  Is it the same as
"rectangle" or "ask/answer".  End users often tell me, "a box popped up on
my screen.", not a prompt, or a message.  Next, they proceed to tell me
what it said.  ME: "You're telling me, there was a _talking box_ on your
screen?".

~Roger

On May 24, 2017 5:49 PM, "Mark Wieder via use-livecode" <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:


On 05/24/2017 05:43 AM, Mike Kerner via use-livecode wrote:


One of the other things that the xtalk languages have that makes them more
appealing is synonyms




--
  Mark Wieder
  ahsoftw...@gmail.com

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Re: English Like?

[Roger Eller via use-livecode]

Were would you use "box" as a synonym (if it were one)?  Is it the same as
"rectangle" or "ask/answer".  End users often tell me, "a box popped up on
my screen.", not a prompt, or a message.  Next, they proceed to tell me
what it said.  ME: "You're telling me, there was a _talking box_ on your
screen?".

~Roger

On May 24, 2017 5:49 PM, "Mark Wieder via use-livecode" <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> On 05/24/2017 05:43 AM, Mike Kerner via use-livecode wrote:
>
>> One of the other things that the xtalk languages have that makes them more
>> appealing is synonyms
>>
>
> 
>
> --
>  Mark Wieder
>  ahsoftw...@gmail.com
>
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Re: English Like?

[Lagi Pittas via use-livecode]

OOPS!!

https://vimeo.com/36579366

On 25 May 2017 at 12:33, Richmond Mathewson via use-livecode <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> Can you post the URL to that video, please?
>
> Richmond.
>
> On 5/25/17 1:13 pm, Lagi Pittas via use-livecode wrote:
>
>> Hi
>>
>> You might want to watch this 1 hour ish video by Bret Victor as you are
>> compiling.
>> I've seen a good few of his talks over the years and read a lot of his
>> stuff.
>>
>> If you think it's too long just got to either 2:30 or 10:30 (that one is
>> mind blowing) but I'd suggest you listen to the whole lecture.
>> This is the Ultimate IDE but his ideas about programming also cover what
>> Mark W.  was saying about not being able to remember the order of
>> parameters. That was in a different talk or on his website - i'll try and
>> dig it out.
>>
>> Comments?
>>
>> Regards Lagi
>>
>> On 25 May 2017 at 09:10, Mark Waddingham via use-livecode <
>> use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:
>>
>> On 2017-05-24 23:47, Mark Wieder via use-livecode wrote:
>>>
>>> On 05/24/2017 08:03 AM, Mark Waddingham via use-livecode wrote:

 Syntax is an emotive issue (I could beat Python to death with some of
 the

> decisions they have made about syntax - but yet I still use it and
> slightly
> enjoy doing so for the purposes I use it for) - but it is not the
> be-all-and-end-all.
>
> I could say the same for any of the computer languages I use.

 Very true.
>>>
>>> Of course, the thing here is that (in general) we have more control over
>>> the grammar and semantics of *programming languages* with constraints of
>>> course...
>>>
>>> In a new language, we have complete control so (in theory) it should be
>>> possible to be unambiguous, consistent and intuitive as far as is
>>> possible... Assuming that one has 100% foresight and knows everything at
>>> the point of design. Failing that, one just does not add features until
>>> one
>>> is sure that they 'correct' (for some definition of 'correct') cf: switch
>>> in LCB.
>>>
>>> In an existing language, we have significant constraints with regards
>>> backwards-compatibility and consistency to what is already there. In many
>>> cases, inconsistencies or un-intuitive is actually what you might call 'a
>>> lack of abstraction of a pattern' - an idea has been implemented for
>>> specific cases, but is actually an instance of a more general abstraction
>>> underneath. Of course in other cases, they come about because the remit
>>> of
>>> things that were considered when they were added was not wide enough and
>>> friction develops between what you have at the point of implementation,
>>> and
>>> what occurs to you later down the line (in some cases, many many years
>>> down
>>> the line).
>>>
>>> The former generally allows things to evolve in a backwards-compatible
>>> way, but the latter it is a great deal harder - however that's where some
>>> sort of 'language versioning' mechanism (e.g. scriptVersion) can help. Of
>>> course you need the infrastructure for the latter to be able to make
>>> progress on those fronts - something we don't *yet* have in LCS.
>>>
>>> And not just computer languages- the various forms of the irregular
>>>
 verbs for instance...

 Old English am had two plural forms: 1. sind/sindon, sie and 2.
 earon/aron. The s- form (also used in the subjunctive) fell from
 English in the early 13c. (though its cousin continues in German sind,
 the 3rd person plural of "to be") and was replaced by forms of be, but
 aron (see are) continued, and as am and be merged it encroached on
 some uses that previously had belonged to be. By the early 1500s it
 had established its place in standard English.

 Hehe - I think I understand English's irregular verbs better now :)
>>>
>>> Warmest Regards,
>>>
>>> Mark.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Mark Waddingham ~ m...@livecode.com ~ http://www.livecode.com/
>>> LiveCode: Everyone can create apps
>>>
>>> ___
>>> use-livecode mailing list
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>>> subscription preferences:
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ht

Re: English Like?

[Richmond Mathewson via use-livecode]

Can you post the URL to that video, please?

Richmond.

On 5/25/17 1:13 pm, Lagi Pittas via use-livecode wrote:

Hi

You might want to watch this 1 hour ish video by Bret Victor as you are
compiling.
I've seen a good few of his talks over the years and read a lot of his
stuff.

If you think it's too long just got to either 2:30 or 10:30 (that one is
mind blowing) but I'd suggest you listen to the whole lecture.
This is the Ultimate IDE but his ideas about programming also cover what
Mark W.  was saying about not being able to remember the order of
parameters. That was in a different talk or on his website - i'll try and
dig it out.

Comments?

Regards Lagi

On 25 May 2017 at 09:10, Mark Waddingham via use-livecode <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:


On 2017-05-24 23:47, Mark Wieder via use-livecode wrote:


On 05/24/2017 08:03 AM, Mark Waddingham via use-livecode wrote:

Syntax is an emotive issue (I could beat Python to death with some of the

decisions they have made about syntax - but yet I still use it and slightly
enjoy doing so for the purposes I use it for) - but it is not the
be-all-and-end-all.


I could say the same for any of the computer languages I use.


Very true.

Of course, the thing here is that (in general) we have more control over
the grammar and semantics of *programming languages* with constraints of
course...

In a new language, we have complete control so (in theory) it should be
possible to be unambiguous, consistent and intuitive as far as is
possible... Assuming that one has 100% foresight and knows everything at
the point of design. Failing that, one just does not add features until one
is sure that they 'correct' (for some definition of 'correct') cf: switch
in LCB.

In an existing language, we have significant constraints with regards
backwards-compatibility and consistency to what is already there. In many
cases, inconsistencies or un-intuitive is actually what you might call 'a
lack of abstraction of a pattern' - an idea has been implemented for
specific cases, but is actually an instance of a more general abstraction
underneath. Of course in other cases, they come about because the remit of
things that were considered when they were added was not wide enough and
friction develops between what you have at the point of implementation, and
what occurs to you later down the line (in some cases, many many years down
the line).

The former generally allows things to evolve in a backwards-compatible
way, but the latter it is a great deal harder - however that's where some
sort of 'language versioning' mechanism (e.g. scriptVersion) can help. Of
course you need the infrastructure for the latter to be able to make
progress on those fronts - something we don't *yet* have in LCS.

And not just computer languages- the various forms of the irregular

verbs for instance...

Old English am had two plural forms: 1. sind/sindon, sie and 2.
earon/aron. The s- form (also used in the subjunctive) fell from
English in the early 13c. (though its cousin continues in German sind,
the 3rd person plural of "to be") and was replaced by forms of be, but
aron (see are) continued, and as am and be merged it encroached on
some uses that previously had belonged to be. By the early 1500s it
had established its place in standard English.


Hehe - I think I understand English's irregular verbs better now :)

Warmest Regards,

Mark.

--
Mark Waddingham ~ m...@livecode.com ~ http://www.livecode.com/
LiveCode: Everyone can create apps

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Re: English Like?

[Lagi Pittas via use-livecode]

Hi

You might want to watch this 1 hour ish video by Bret Victor as you are
compiling.
I've seen a good few of his talks over the years and read a lot of his
stuff.

If you think it's too long just got to either 2:30 or 10:30 (that one is
mind blowing) but I'd suggest you listen to the whole lecture.
This is the Ultimate IDE but his ideas about programming also cover what
Mark W.  was saying about not being able to remember the order of
parameters. That was in a different talk or on his website - i'll try and
dig it out.

Comments?

Regards Lagi

On 25 May 2017 at 09:10, Mark Waddingham via use-livecode <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> On 2017-05-24 23:47, Mark Wieder via use-livecode wrote:
>
>> On 05/24/2017 08:03 AM, Mark Waddingham via use-livecode wrote:
>>
>> Syntax is an emotive issue (I could beat Python to death with some of the
>>> decisions they have made about syntax - but yet I still use it and slightly
>>> enjoy doing so for the purposes I use it for) - but it is not the
>>> be-all-and-end-all.
>>>
>>
>> I could say the same for any of the computer languages I use.
>>
>
> Very true.
>
> Of course, the thing here is that (in general) we have more control over
> the grammar and semantics of *programming languages* with constraints of
> course...
>
> In a new language, we have complete control so (in theory) it should be
> possible to be unambiguous, consistent and intuitive as far as is
> possible... Assuming that one has 100% foresight and knows everything at
> the point of design. Failing that, one just does not add features until one
> is sure that they 'correct' (for some definition of 'correct') cf: switch
> in LCB.
>
> In an existing language, we have significant constraints with regards
> backwards-compatibility and consistency to what is already there. In many
> cases, inconsistencies or un-intuitive is actually what you might call 'a
> lack of abstraction of a pattern' - an idea has been implemented for
> specific cases, but is actually an instance of a more general abstraction
> underneath. Of course in other cases, they come about because the remit of
> things that were considered when they were added was not wide enough and
> friction develops between what you have at the point of implementation, and
> what occurs to you later down the line (in some cases, many many years down
> the line).
>
> The former generally allows things to evolve in a backwards-compatible
> way, but the latter it is a great deal harder - however that's where some
> sort of 'language versioning' mechanism (e.g. scriptVersion) can help. Of
> course you need the infrastructure for the latter to be able to make
> progress on those fronts - something we don't *yet* have in LCS.
>
> And not just computer languages- the various forms of the irregular
>> verbs for instance...
>>
>> Old English am had two plural forms: 1. sind/sindon, sie and 2.
>> earon/aron. The s- form (also used in the subjunctive) fell from
>> English in the early 13c. (though its cousin continues in German sind,
>> the 3rd person plural of "to be") and was replaced by forms of be, but
>> aron (see are) continued, and as am and be merged it encroached on
>> some uses that previously had belonged to be. By the early 1500s it
>> had established its place in standard English.
>>
>
> Hehe - I think I understand English's irregular verbs better now :)
>
> Warmest Regards,
>
> Mark.
>
> --
> Mark Waddingham ~ m...@livecode.com ~ http://www.livecode.com/
> LiveCode: Everyone can create apps
>
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Re: English Like?

[Keith Martin via use-livecode]

On 24 May 2017, at 16:19, prothero--- via use-livecode wrote:

Or conversely, would people new to coding find htalk easy and 
intuitive? These are two different questions and a rigorous answer 
will most likely not come from knowledgeable livecode programmers.


Speaking as a university lecturer who teaches LC to graphic design 
students from time to time, I can absolutely attest to the benefits of 
the 'English-like' qualities of xTalk. They get it, they can work things 
out, they can use it to create *their own* basic tools and toys, and 
this after just one afternoon.


It's imperfect... but hell, even *English* could be described as being 
just English-*like* if you want to go down that debating rabbit hole! 
The point is it's *so* much easier than traditional languages for people 
to grok. That's one of LC's USPs.


k


---

Keith Martin
Senior Lecturer, LCC (University of the Arts London)
President, http://IVRPA.org
http://PanoramaPhotographer.com
http://thatkeith.com
+44 (0)7909541365

---
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Re: English Like?

[Mark Waddingham via use-livecode]

On 2017-05-24 19:27, Mark Wieder via use-livecode wrote:

On 05/24/2017 08:11 AM, Martin Koob via use-livecode wrote:
I agree that LiveCode script should become more English like as time 
goes on

not only with english words but also with more natural(or intuitive)
grammar.


From your examples I think it would be more natural to type.


put the third index of tNumericArray into tFoo


The one that's always bugged me is

put item 2 of the rect of someObject into tVar

Rects have a defined order of items, and I can never remember whether
it's "left,top..." or "top,left..." and I end up looking it up every
time. I'd love to have a more normal (all right, English-like...
there... I've said it) way to remember and write this.


This is a very interesting example on two levels...

The first is in regards to 'English-like'-ness. In English we uniformly 
use 'top left' to describe, well, the 'top left' point of something. 
However, mathematical convention means that points are always 'across 
then down' - i.e. x, y.


The English phrase for this concept is 'top left' because there is a 
rule in English about the order of adjectives - interestingly if you get 
the order wrong, it just *sounds* wrong (e.g. mad old women vs old mad 
women). Of course, for non-native English speakers (as Tiemo pointed out 
a few days ago) it probably makes no sense at all *unless* you remember 
that rather odd English rule about adjective order.


[ Indeed, I suspect other languages also have a similar rule, but I 
don't recall ever being taught such a thing in French, German, Latin or 
Ancient Greek (which could be a facet of time admittedly - it being 20 
yrs since I studied them), but perhaps it is just something which we 
'pick up' through repetition until it gets embedded in deep parts of our 
brains. ]


So we do have the (syntactically) rather (apparantly) inconsistent and 
unintuitive:


  set the topLeft of button 1 to tLeft, tTop

However, conceptually it is 'correct' - topLeft is the correct way to 
express the concept *in English* and tLeft,tTop is how the concept is 
expressed in geometry.


If we were to use leftTop instead, it would be consistent with the 
'syntax' (if you like) of the underlying concept, but inconsistent with 
the 'syntax' for it in English.


End result: there is friction between the abstract concept (a point is 
x,y) and how it is expressed in language (English mandates top-left).


Now, I'm not sure this is 'fixable' in a way which would be 'better' for 
everybody, however, the name of the concept (topLeft) used in LiveCode 
is perhaps not the real problem... The problem comes (as Mark rightly 
points out) when you try and *manipulate* the thing you get when you ask 
for the rect, or the topLeft...


You have to do:

  put item 1 of tRect into tLeft
  put item 2 of tRect into tTop
  put item 1 to 2 of tRect into tTopLeft

Here we have what you might call 'magic constants' (1 and 2) - you have 
to *know* what those constants are, and use them explicitly to get the 
right thing (Alex pointed out in this thread that you could just define 
constants and/or globals for them - which works, but isn't exactly 
intuitive unless you know to do that).


A much more intuitive way to do this would be to be able to do:

  put the left of tRect into tLeft
  put the top of tRect into tTop
  put the topLeft of tRect into tTopLeft

Of course the issue here is that (in LiveCode) points and rectangles 
(and colors) are just strings - there is no extra information there. So 
when the engine tries to evaluate:


  the left of tRect

All it has to work with is the content of tRect which is a string of 
four comma separated numbers - but a string of four comma separated 
numbers could be a variety of things and not necessarily a rect.


One suggestion which immediately comes to mind is - oh we could just add 
some extra invisible 'meta' information to 'the thing returned by the 
rect property' marking string as a StringyRectangle so the engine 
*knows* it is a rectangle. However, that doesn't work because that meta 
information would be immediately lost if you concatenate your rect onto 
another string:


  repeat for with i = 1 to the number of controls
put the rect of control i & return after tControlRectList
  end repeat

Something which is done all the time in LiveCode. Furthermore, if the 
string came from somewhere which is not a rect property, then it 
wouldn't have it either - e.g. the rect is a substring of a text file 
from an external source.


However, what we could potentially exploit is the syntax of the thing in 
the string. At the moment when you do:


   the something of tString

The engine interprets this as a property get on an object - it converts 
tString to an object reference (in

Re: English Like?

[Mark Waddingham via use-livecode]

On 2017-05-24 23:47, Mark Wieder via use-livecode wrote:

On 05/24/2017 08:03 AM, Mark Waddingham via use-livecode wrote:

Syntax is an emotive issue (I could beat Python to death with some of 
the decisions they have made about syntax - but yet I still use it and 
slightly enjoy doing so for the purposes I use it for) - but it is not 
the be-all-and-end-all.


I could say the same for any of the computer languages I use.


Very true.

Of course, the thing here is that (in general) we have more control over 
the grammar and semantics of *programming languages* with constraints of 
course...


In a new language, we have complete control so (in theory) it should be 
possible to be unambiguous, consistent and intuitive as far as is 
possible... Assuming that one has 100% foresight and knows everything at 
the point of design. Failing that, one just does not add features until 
one is sure that they 'correct' (for some definition of 'correct') cf: 
switch in LCB.


In an existing language, we have significant constraints with regards 
backwards-compatibility and consistency to what is already there. In 
many cases, inconsistencies or un-intuitive is actually what you might 
call 'a lack of abstraction of a pattern' - an idea has been implemented 
for specific cases, but is actually an instance of a more general 
abstraction underneath. Of course in other cases, they come about 
because the remit of things that were considered when they were added 
was not wide enough and friction develops between what you have at the 
point of implementation, and what occurs to you later down the line (in 
some cases, many many years down the line).


The former generally allows things to evolve in a backwards-compatible 
way, but the latter it is a great deal harder - however that's where 
some sort of 'language versioning' mechanism (e.g. scriptVersion) can 
help. Of course you need the infrastructure for the latter to be able to 
make progress on those fronts - something we don't *yet* have in LCS.



And not just computer languages- the various forms of the irregular
verbs for instance...

Old English am had two plural forms: 1. sind/sindon, sie and 2.
earon/aron. The s- form (also used in the subjunctive) fell from
English in the early 13c. (though its cousin continues in German sind,
the 3rd person plural of "to be") and was replaced by forms of be, but
aron (see are) continued, and as am and be merged it encroached on
some uses that previously had belonged to be. By the early 1500s it
had established its place in standard English.


Hehe - I think I understand English's irregular verbs better now :)

Warmest Regards,

Mark.

--
Mark Waddingham ~ m...@livecode.com ~ http://www.livecode.com/
LiveCode: Everyone can create apps

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Re: English Like?

[Mark Waddingham via use-livecode]

On 2017-05-24 19:14, Mark Wieder via use-livecode wrote:

On 05/24/2017 08:03 AM, Mark Waddingham via use-livecode wrote:

Anyway, I shall now get off my (small?) soap-box. Again this is a 
discussion, there are lots of reasons why people don't choose LiveCode 
and we try our very best to determine them, and deal with them. There 
are certainly easier ones to tackle than adding a new 'syntax style' 
and of course we intend to address those first...


I just want to say that in spite of all the verbiage that showed up
overnight, this has been a most enjoyable thread to wake up to.


Heh - the verbiage being mostly my fault ;)

It is amazing how your mind can wander whilst staring at a terminal 
watching build instructions fly by!


Warmest Regards,

Mark.

--
Mark Waddingham ~ m...@livecode.com ~ http://www.livecode.com/
LiveCode: Everyone can create apps

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Re: English Like?

[Mark Wieder via use-livecode]

On 05/24/2017 06:56 PM, Mike Kerner via use-livecode wrote:

so, @markwieder, are you not a fan of synonyms?


Eh? No, very much am. Just usually get my hand slapped when I suggest 
that to the team.


--
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 ahsoftw...@gmail.com

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Re: English Like?

[Mark Wieder via use-livecode]

On 05/24/2017 09:18 PM, J. Landman Gay via use-livecode wrote:


I suspect 48% of readers will remember one of those over the others.


...wait... there was more than one?

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Re: English Like?

[J. Landman Gay via use-livecode]

Now I only have to remember whether it's clockwise or the other one.


Use a mnemonic like "all cows eat grass" and "good boys do fine always":

Little Tykes Read Books

Lethal Tornadoes Ruin Buildings

Lowly Tadpoles Release Bubbles

Loose Tops Reveal Boo... er, Bosoms

I suspect 48% of readers will remember one of those over the others.

--
Jacqueline Landman Gay | jac...@hyperactivesw.com
HyperActive Software   | http://www.hyperactivesw.com



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Re: English Like?

[Jerry Jensen via use-livecode]

On May 24, 2017, at 2:30 PM, Mark Wieder via use-livecode 
 wrote:
> 
> On 05/24/2017 01:41 PM, Scott Rossi via use-livecode wrote:
>> @Mark — the sequence/direction is clockwise, if that helps.  So top -> left… 
>> doesn’t work.
> 
> That does, in a way.
> Now I only have to remember whether it's clockwise or the other one.
> And that it doesn't start at the top - TopRightBottomLeft seems more 
> clockwise to me. Or at least more like a clock.

Or just remember TL;DR but D stands for bottom.

Reminiscent of:
“Name’s Pither - just like brotherhood but pi instead of bro and without the 
hood part”
-Michael Palin



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Porridge (was Re: English Like?)

[James Hale via use-livecode]

Richard wrote:
> For those who like salt in their porridge there's LiveCode, and for 
> those who prefer sugar, or syrup, or prunes in their porridge
> there are other puddings on offer.

I actually like both. Couldn't imagine not putting salt in the porridge. Then 
once it is cooked, add sugar and usually sultanas (occasionally a banana.)
Of course I am speaking of rolled oat porridge and made using full cream milk.
(Yes, I like it rich, creamy and sweet.)

Delicious 

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Re: English Like?

[Mike Kerner via use-livecode]

so, @markwieder, are you not a fan of synonyms?

On Wed, May 24, 2017 at 8:31 PM, Mark Wieder via use-livecode <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> On 05/24/2017 03:38 PM, Richard Gaskin via use-livecode wrote:
>
>> Mark Wieder wrote:
>>
>>  > Now I only have to remember whether it's clockwise or the other one.
>>  > And that it doesn't start at the top - TopRightBottomLeft seems more
>>  > clockwise to me. Or at least more like a clock.
>>
>> And to the team that designed CSS.
>>
>>
>  don't get me started on CSS inconsistencies...
>
> --
>  Mark Wieder
>  ahsoftw...@gmail.com
>
>
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-- 
On the first day, God created the heavens and the Earth
On the second day, God created the oceans.
On the third day, God put the animals on hold for a few hours,
   and did a little diving.
And God said, "This is good."
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Re: English Like?

[Mark Wieder via use-livecode]

On 05/24/2017 03:38 PM, Richard Gaskin via use-livecode wrote:

Mark Wieder wrote:

 > Now I only have to remember whether it's clockwise or the other one.
 > And that it doesn't start at the top - TopRightBottomLeft seems more
 > clockwise to me. Or at least more like a clock.

And to the team that designed CSS.



 don't get me started on CSS inconsistencies...

--
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 ahsoftw...@gmail.com

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Re: English Like?

[Mark Wieder via use-livecode]

On 05/24/2017 02:57 PM, Alejandro Tejada via use-livecode wrote:

Or you could remember that the
Rectangle of a control is a repetition
of two coordinates: xyxy
Left and Right are on X axis
Top and Bottom are on Y axis.


Indeed - so it's like two points (x,y) , (x,y): leftTop, rightBottom.
Except that it's topLeft and bottomRight. Not saying that it shouldn't 
be... it's just part of being "English-like".


...and I have to laugh at the dictionary's syntax for topLeft:

"set the topLeft of object to left, top"

--
 Mark Wieder
 ahsoftw...@gmail.com

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Re: English Like?

[Richard Gaskin via use-livecode]

Mark Wieder wrote:

> Now I only have to remember whether it's clockwise or the other one.
> And that it doesn't start at the top - TopRightBottomLeft seems more
> clockwise to me. Or at least more like a clock.

And to the team that designed CSS.

--
 Richard Gaskin
 Fourth World Systems
 Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
 
 ambassa...@fourthworld.comhttp://www.FourthWorld.com

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English Like?

[Alejandro Tejada via use-livecode]

Or you could remember that the
Rectangle of a control is a repetition
of two coordinates: xyxy
Left and Right are on X axis
Top and Bottom are on Y axis.

> on 05/24/2017 01:41 PM, Scott Rossi wrote:
> the sequence/direction is clockwise, if that helps.
> So top -> left… doesn’t work.

> Mark Wieder wrote:
> That does, in a way. Now I only have to remember
> whether it's clockwise or the other one.
> And that it doesn't start at the top -
> TopRightBottomLeft seems more clockwise to me.
> Or at least more like a clock.

Al
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Re: English Like?

[Mark Wieder via use-livecode]

On 05/24/2017 05:43 AM, Mike Kerner via use-livecode wrote:

One of the other things that the xtalk languages have that makes them more
appealing is synonyms




--
 Mark Wieder
 ahsoftw...@gmail.com

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Re: English Like?

[Mark Wieder via use-livecode]

On 05/24/2017 08:03 AM, Mark Waddingham via use-livecode wrote:

> Syntax is an emotive issue (I could beat Python to death with some of 
the decisions they have made about syntax - but yet I still use it and 
slightly enjoy doing so for the purposes I use it for) - but it is not 
the be-all-and-end-all.


I could say the same for any of the computer languages I use.
And not just computer languages- the various forms of the irregular 
verbs for instance...


Old English beon, beom, bion "be, exist, come to be, become, happen," 
from Proto-Germanic *biju- "I am, I will be." This "b-root" is from PIE 
root *bheue- "to be, exist, grow," and in addition to the words in 
English it yielded German present first and second person singular (bin, 
bist, from Old High German bim "I am," bist "thou art"), Latin 
perfective tenses of esse (fui "I was," etc.), Old Church Slavonic byti 
"be," Greek phu- "become," Old Irish bi'u "I am," Lithuanian bu'ti "to 
be," Russian byt' "to be," etc.


The modern verb to be in its entirety represents the merger of two 
once-distinct verbs, the "b-root" represented by be and the am/was verb, 
which was itself a conglomerate. Roger Lass ("Old English") describes 
the verb as "a collection of semantically related paradigm fragments," 
while Weekley calls it "an accidental conglomeration from the different 
Old English dial[ect]s." It is the most irregular verb in Modern English 
and the most common. Collective in all Germanic languages, it has eight 
different forms in Modern English:


BE (infinitive, subjunctive, imperative)
AM (present 1st person singular)
ARE (present 2nd person singular and all plural)
IS (present 3rd person singular)
WAS (past 1st and 3rd persons singular)
WERE (past 2nd person singular, all plural; subjunctive)
BEING (progressive & present participle; gerund)
BEEN (perfect participle).

Old English am had two plural forms: 1. sind/sindon, sie and 2. 
earon/aron. The s- form (also used in the subjunctive) fell from English 
in the early 13c. (though its cousin continues in German sind, the 3rd 
person plural of "to be") and was replaced by forms of be, but aron (see 
are) continued, and as am and be merged it encroached on some uses that 
previously had belonged to be. By the early 1500s it had established its 
place in standard English.


That but this blow Might be the be all, and the end all.
["Macbeth" I.vii.5]

--
 Mark Wieder
 ahsoftw...@gmail.com

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Re: English Like?

[Mark Wieder via use-livecode]

On 05/24/2017 01:41 PM, Scott Rossi via use-livecode wrote:

@Mark — the sequence/direction is clockwise, if that helps.  So top -> left… 
doesn’t work.


That does, in a way.
Now I only have to remember whether it's clockwise or the other one.
And that it doesn't start at the top - TopRightBottomLeft seems more 
clockwise to me. Or at least more like a clock.


--
 Mark Wieder
 ahsoftw...@gmail.com

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Re: English Like?

[Scott Rossi via use-livecode]

@Mark — the sequence/direction is clockwise, if that helps.  So top -> left… 
doesn’t work.

Scott Rossi 
Creative Director 
Tactile Media, UX/UI Design 



> On May 24, 2017, at 12:35 PM, Mark Wieder via use-livecode 
>  wrote:
> 
> On 05/24/2017 12:25 PM, Alex Tweedly via use-livecode wrote:
>> constant kRectLeft = 1, kRectTop = 2, kRectRight = 3, kRectBottom = 4
>> (or whatever ... haven't looked it up :-)
> 
> Exactly the point.
> I'd have to store this somewhere, and either grab it each time I need it or 
> look it up and reinvent it each time.
> 
> -- 
> Mark Wieder
> ahsoftw...@gmail.com
> 
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Re: English Like?

[Ali Lloyd via use-livecode]

All this chat reminds me about this old pull request:
https://github.com/livecode/livecode/pull/1587/files and blog post
https://livecode.com/extending-the-refactored-engine-properties/

the top/bottom/left/right/middle/area etc of rect could probably be done in
the same way.

OK so it's maybe not quite the right approach but it was fun to implement!

On Wed, May 24, 2017 at 8:35 PM Mark Wieder via use-livecode <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> On 05/24/2017 12:25 PM, Alex Tweedly via use-livecode wrote:
> > constant kRectLeft = 1, kRectTop = 2, kRectRight = 3, kRectBottom = 4
> >
> > (or whatever ... haven't looked it up :-)
>
> Exactly the point.
> I'd have to store this somewhere, and either grab it each time I need it
> or look it up and reinvent it each time.
>
> --
>   Mark Wieder
>   ahsoftw...@gmail.com
>
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Re: English Like?

[Alex Tweedly via use-livecode]

Then I'll confess that what I would actually do is

 - make them globals (??!!)

 - initialize them in the "on librarystack" handler of my standard 
(i.e. always used) library stack


 - and be comforted that my use of 'explicitvars' will ensure I know if 
they are not included as global in any script that uses them.


Now if only I could have "constant global"s I'd be (almost*) happy.

Alex.

* almost - because I'd then still grumble about not being able to do 
simple expressions in constant statements; e.g.  constant kSecsPerDay = 
60 * 60 * 24, kSpD = kSpM * kMpH * kHpD



On 24/05/2017 20:35, Mark Wieder via use-livecode wrote:

On 05/24/2017 12:25 PM, Alex Tweedly via use-livecode wrote:

constant kRectLeft = 1, kRectTop = 2, kRectRight = 3, kRectBottom = 4

(or whatever ... haven't looked it up :-)


Exactly the point.
I'd have to store this somewhere, and either grab it each time I need 
it or look it up and reinvent it each time.





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Re: English Like?

[Roger Eller via use-livecode]

On Wed, May 24, 2017 at 12:47 PM, Mark Waddingham via use-livecode <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> Hehe - what an enjoyable post to read - I couldn't resist 'biting'
> on a few things though ;)
>
> On 2017-05-24 17:57, Richmond Mathewson via use-livecode wrote:
>
>> Probably most of those programmers (like many well-established
>> LiveCode programmers) have invested so much time and effort
>> in learning the high level language(s) they already use that they are
>> unlikely to switch.
>
>
> This is partly true - however, 'no man is an island', people develop
> preconceptions about things over time which influence the choices in
> the future.
>
> I think it would be fair to say there might well be some sort of general
> 'meme' which floats around with regards to 'English-like' languages
> and not necessarily a positive one.



Star Trek is the best advocate for English-like computing in the future.
And now Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant have made it a reality.

Meme-like:  http://imgur.com/Dtp7IPQ

~Roger
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Re: English Like?

[Mark Wieder via use-livecode]

On 05/24/2017 12:25 PM, Alex Tweedly via use-livecode wrote:

constant kRectLeft = 1, kRectTop = 2, kRectRight = 3, kRectBottom = 4

(or whatever ... haven't looked it up :-)


Exactly the point.
I'd have to store this somewhere, and either grab it each time I need it 
or look it up and reinvent it each time.


--
 Mark Wieder
 ahsoftw...@gmail.com

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Re: English Like?

[Alex Tweedly via use-livecode]

constant kRectLeft = 1, kRectTop = 2, kRectRight = 3, kRectBottom = 4

(or whatever ... haven't looked it up :-)

Alex.


On 24/05/2017 18:27, Mark Wieder via use-livecode wrote:

The one that's always bugged me is

put item 2 of the rect of someObject into tVar

Rects have a defined order of items, and I can never remember whether 
it's "left,top..." or "top,left..." and I end up looking it up every 
time. I'd love to have a more normal (all right, English-like... 
there... I've said it) way to remember and write this.





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Re: English Like?

[Mark Wieder via use-livecode]

On 05/24/2017 10:54 AM, Mike Kerner via use-livecode wrote:

like "put the left of someObject"?


Heh. Shoulda used a different example.

No, my problem is more with changing the rect of an object. Setting the 
left of an object has repercussions with respect to the other object 
parameters. If I explicitly want to store values into the rect then I 
have to use the "item 2" form.


--
 Mark Wieder
 ahsoftw...@gmail.com

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Re: English Like?

[Lagi Pittas via use-livecode]

Bob,

You forget right upto Visual Foxpro 9, Fox still was backwards compatible
with Dbase 2 and still had the STORE statement.

STORE A TO B
STORE 1+15 to C
STORE 5 to a,b,,c,d
STORE "HELLO" to message

The HC and DBASE way  is the logical way to do it for mere mortals,  but
when the whole computer has  4K WORDS of magnetic backing store (IBM 704
that FORTRAN  was written on) you have to use concise syntaxt - a=b instead
of put a into B a 25% of the characters in this case.

Secondly if your output is paper -  Teletype 33 - 10 characters a second ,
that is another reason.

WE do things not because they are the best way but because in the past
there were limitations we have forgotten about.

To paraphrase  Max Planck:-

A programming  language does not triumph by convincing its opponents and
making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die
and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.

Regards Lagi



On 24 May 2017 at 18:54, Bob Sneidar via use-livecode <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> I'll bite. One of the reasons that the heartbleed bug passed muster was
> because the code OpenSSL is written in is *not* easily human readable. It's
> hard enough to spot a bug in LC script. Being human readable makes it
> tolerable to debug by reading through code.
>
> The first time I encountered x = "123" in FoxPro, I thought to myself, "Is
> that a test that returns true or false? If so where is the result stored?"
> It isn't the least bit intuitive. And FoxPro/dBase WAS a scripting
> language, but they were inexorably tied to prior language conventions like
> Pascal, or else they feared "real programmers" would not adopt it.
>
> There is also the issue of pride. Everyone wants to think the decisions
> they made are the "best" decision that could have been made at the time. To
> acknowledge there *might* have been something better, or just other, that
> they could have adopted is personally offensive to some. To suggest it
> might be easier to develop in Livecode when they already are proficient in
> C or Java might seem like a criticism of past choices to many.
>
> Finally there is the fear of the unknown. The greatest difficuly I have
> trying to teach people how to work with OS X, is that having spent all the
> time and effort learning Windows, they imagine the same time and effort
> will be required to learn OS X. Of course anyone who knows both operating
> systems knows that is an irrational fear. Most of the things you learn
> about either OS is common to both. The same applies to software
> development. The principles are all in place. It's convention that differs.
>
> Bob S
>
>
>
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Re: English Like?

[Mike Kerner via use-livecode]

like "put the left of someObject"?

On Wed, May 24, 2017 at 1:27 PM, Mark Wieder via use-livecode <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> On 05/24/2017 08:11 AM, Martin Koob via use-livecode wrote:
>
>> I agree that LiveCode script should become more English like as time goes
>> on
>> not only with english words but also with more natural(or intuitive)
>> grammar.
>>
>> From your examples I think it would be more natural to type.
>>>
>>
>> put the third index of tNumericArray into tFoo
>>
>
> The one that's always bugged me is
>
> put item 2 of the rect of someObject into tVar
>
> Rects have a defined order of items, and I can never remember whether it's
> "left,top..." or "top,left..." and I end up looking it up every time. I'd
> love to have a more normal (all right, English-like... there... I've said
> it) way to remember and write this.
>
> --
>  Mark Wieder
>  ahsoftw...@gmail.com
>
>
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-- 
On the first day, God created the heavens and the Earth
On the second day, God created the oceans.
On the third day, God put the animals on hold for a few hours,
   and did a little diving.
And God said, "This is good."
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Re: English Like?

[Bob Sneidar via use-livecode]

I'll bite. One of the reasons that the heartbleed bug passed muster was because 
the code OpenSSL is written in is *not* easily human readable. It's hard enough 
to spot a bug in LC script. Being human readable makes it tolerable to debug by 
reading through code. 

The first time I encountered x = "123" in FoxPro, I thought to myself, "Is that 
a test that returns true or false? If so where is the result stored?" It isn't 
the least bit intuitive. And FoxPro/dBase WAS a scripting language, but they 
were inexorably tied to prior language conventions like Pascal, or else they 
feared "real programmers" would not adopt it. 

There is also the issue of pride. Everyone wants to think the decisions they 
made are the "best" decision that could have been made at the time. To 
acknowledge there *might* have been something better, or just other, that they 
could have adopted is personally offensive to some. To suggest it might be 
easier to develop in Livecode when they already are proficient in C or Java 
might seem like a criticism of past choices to many. 

Finally there is the fear of the unknown. The greatest difficuly I have trying 
to teach people how to work with OS X, is that having spent all the time and 
effort learning Windows, they imagine the same time and effort will be required 
to learn OS X. Of course anyone who knows both operating systems knows that is 
an irrational fear. Most of the things you learn about either OS is common to 
both. The same applies to software development. The principles are all in 
place. It's convention that differs. 

Bob S



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Re: English Like?

[Dr. Hawkins via use-livecode]

On Wed, May 24, 2017 at 10:27 AM, Mark Wieder via use-livecode <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> Rects have a defined order of items, and I can never remember whether it's
> "left,top..." or "top,left..." and I end up looking it up every time. I'd
> love to have a more normal (all right, English-like... there... I've said
> it) way to remember and write this.


You seem to be a bit  LTRBed by this . . .

:)

-- 
Dr. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq.
(702) 508-8462
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Re: English Like?

[Mark Wieder via use-livecode]

On 05/24/2017 08:11 AM, Martin Koob via use-livecode wrote:

I agree that LiveCode script should become more English like as time goes on
not only with english words but also with more natural(or intuitive)
grammar.


From your examples I think it would be more natural to type.


put the third index of tNumericArray into tFoo


The one that's always bugged me is

put item 2 of the rect of someObject into tVar

Rects have a defined order of items, and I can never remember whether 
it's "left,top..." or "top,left..." and I end up looking it up every 
time. I'd love to have a more normal (all right, English-like... 
there... I've said it) way to remember and write this.


--
 Mark Wieder
 ahsoftw...@gmail.com

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Re: English Like?

[Mark Wieder via use-livecode]

On 05/24/2017 08:03 AM, Mark Waddingham via use-livecode wrote:

Anyway, I shall now get off my (small?) soap-box. Again this is a 
discussion, there are lots of reasons why people don't choose LiveCode 
and we try our very best to determine them, and deal with them. There 
are certainly easier ones to tackle than adding a new 'syntax style' and 
of course we intend to address those first...


I just want to say that in spite of all the verbiage that showed up 
overnight, this has been a most enjoyable thread to wake up to.


--
 Mark Wieder
 ahsoftw...@gmail.com

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Re: English Like?

[Mark Waddingham via use-livecode]

Hehe - what an enjoyable post to read - I couldn't resist 'biting'
on a few things though ;)

On 2017-05-24 17:57, Richmond Mathewson via use-livecode wrote:

Probably most of those programmers (like many well-established
LiveCode programmers) have invested so much time and effort
in learning the high level language(s) they already use that they are
unlikely to switch.


But if we can make them switch, that benefits LiveCode as a whole.


From a marketing point of view I believe that this question is more
pressing than the other one, just because people new to coding have
not got stuck in the groove of a particulalr programming language.


This is partly true - however, 'no man is an island', people develop
preconceptions about things over time which influence the choices in
the future.

I think it would be fair to say there might well be some sort of general
'meme' which floats around with regards to 'English-like' languages
and not necessarily a positive one.

Ergo - someone who has never been a programmer, who perhaps is thinking
of dabbling, might get put off by LiveCode because of its language, just
because they have that 'meme' embedded in that psyche without even 
trying

it properly.


What does need to be born in mind is that most of LiveCode's installed
user-base like their pudding the way LiveCode serves,
and changing the recipe to attract other people might only serve to
alienate current users rather than attarct others;
probably not worth the risk.


So we must make sure that the 'pudding' our current user-base isn't
diluted in the process. Most companies might start out producing only 
one
kind of 'pudding', but if they never diversify they risk ceasing to be 
at some
point when some other company produces 'pudding+' which people like 
better;
or if they can no longer produce 'pudding' because some 'nanny' decides 
that

a key ingredient should not be allowed anymore for the health of all.

Having all your eggs in one basket is a little risky...


My school now runs at exactly the size I want it to; those 'factories'
still run. Nobody, as far as I can tell, feels threatened by my
operation,
and I don't feel threatened by them. This is because, although we all
"sell" English as a Foreign Language, we do it in different ways; and
the children who come to my school are quite unlike those who go to
the other ones (which suits me 100%). There is room in the
multiverse of EFL for a variety of products.


It is great that you've reached a 'steady state' with your EFL school :)

However, it is perhaps fair to say that the world of EFL teaching does
not move at quite the same rate as the world of computers, there are 
lots
of very large 'pudding behemoths' out there who care not one whit for 
small
'pudding' manufacturers - and quite often trample them under foot 
without

a moment's thought.

I would also conjecture that the infrastructure requirements for our
particular kind of 'pudding' are somewhat larger than for a single
successful EFL school - and when combined with the fast paced 
environment
our 'pudding' is couched in, one needs to be careful that one can 
support

one's 'pudding' manufacture now and into the long term future.


No: a lot of the syntax isn't English-like, and the claims that have
been flying around about that ever since HyperCard seem almost
as crook as the "programming is easy" porky.


I agree with the statement that 'programming is easy' in general is a 
bit of a porky.


Most things are not easy when you get below a certain depth (kind of a 
tautology,

easy things generally being quite shallow in any domain).

However, I am firmly in the belief that many of the reasons why it is 
not 'easy'
right now are not because they could not be easier, but because like 
most
industries there is a huge inertia with how things are currently done 
and
when you are in the midst of doing something, you have to get it done, 
and perhaps

thinking about 'how to make it easier' is a distant thought.

In general I'd like to think that LiveCode does make some things easier 
than

other languages - and, in general, it is going in the right direction.


In regards to 'English-like' - then well let's just say LiveCode is 
'fibbidy-dab'
if 'English-like' is considered too inaccurate. In comparison with 
pretty much
ever other programming language which exists today and is still 
maintained,
I'd say LiveCode is significantly more 'English-like' than any of them 
thus

justifying its tag of 'English-like' ;)



"Intuitive" . . . ha, ha, ha. Human languages are not intuitive:
otherwise we'd all be learning a new language every 3 or 4 weeks
and the Tower of 

Re: English Like?

[Richmond Mathewson via use-livecode]

On 5/24/17 6:19 pm, prothero--- via use-livecode wrote:

Ok,ok, I hear y'all about the approachability of the htalk language. I do know that when 
we get familiar with an intellectual construct, we tend to give validity to information 
or attitudes that agree with that construct. Confirmation bias seemed to be a huge factor 
in news "facts" acceptance in the recent US election, as well.

As to the subject at hand, experienced programmers are going to favor 
constructs they are already familiar with.


Yup: but that is has no more objective validity than people from the 
British Isles favoUring different spelling conventions.


Whether someone spells the word "quha" or "who" is, ultimately neither 
here nor there. If I were ti hire a computer programmer to do a job
I would be concerned whether that programmer could produce a finished 
product for me that looked and functioned the way I wanted
it to: I really wouldn't give a tuppeny toss which language/development 
environment s/he used to achieve that.



  It will not be possible to settle the question of whether using x=3 or put 3 
into x is more logical using this audience. In addition, the question is 
ill-posed.
This question is about a matter of taste, not logic, and those who think 
that it refers to logic are unaware of how they have let
themselves be lulled into accepting one way of doing things as "the 
logical way".



One question is whether programmers experienced in other high level languages 
would find livecode an attractive option for their work.


Probably most of those programmers (like many well-established LiveCode 
programmers) have invested so much time and effort
in learning the high level language(s) they already use that they are 
unlikely to switch.



Or conversely, would people new to coding find htalk easy and intuitive?


From a marketing point of view I believe that this question is more 
pressing than the other one, just because people new to coding have not 
got stuck in the groove of a particulalr programming language.


The other day I revived my BBC Master Compact that I bought in 1989 and 
started doing some programming on it and was both surprised and 
enlightened that I took quite some time to get up to speed after some 27 
years not touching BBC BASIC.


Surprised because I had not realised how much the "LiveCode way" had 
permeated my way of doing things.


Enlightened because I began to remember what life was like before 
HyperCard, Graphic User Interfaces and all the stuff we now all

too readily take for granted with computers.

I'm trying to get a FORTRAN IV ROM chip to install in my BBC . . . .

  These are two different questions and a rigorous answer will most likely not 
come from knowledgeable livecode programmers. No insult is intended, as I 
accept that I am guilty of the same bias.

In my humble opinion, the proof is in the pudding.


Indeed: and different people like different puddings.

What does need to be born in mind is that most of LiveCode's installed 
user-base like their pudding the way LiveCode serves,
and changing the recipe to attract other people might only serve to 
alienate current users rather than attarct others;

probably not worth the risk.

For those who like salt in their porridge there's LiveCode, and for 
those who prefer sugar, or syrup, or prunes in their porridge

there are other puddings on offer.

When I started my EFL school in Bulgaria 12 years ago I was "up against" 
4 major 'factory' EFL schools, and people were telling me all sorts
of "good" advice as to how I should drive them out of business and 
become "Mr English" in the town. I didn't listen.


My school now runs at exactly the size I want it to; those 'factories' 
still run. Nobody, as far as I can tell, feels threatened by my operation,
and I don't feel threatened by them. This is because, although we all 
"sell" English as a Foreign Language, we do it in different ways; and
the children who come to my school are quite unlike those who go to the 
other ones (which suits me 100%). There is room in the

multiverse of EFL for a variety of products.


  What can I build with this application and how easy will it be to build what 
I want? I may prefer other syntaxes, but what the heck?


Well, there are probably nearly as many variables to be weighed up as 
there are potential LiveCode programmers; here's one more:


1. Can I afford the necessary time needed to get reasonably competent at 
programming in LiveCode and will that be justifiable

   when I can develop my next-big-thing in language X that I already know?


  As long as I can find what I need to make what I want, and have this fantastic array of 
users who help me out, I'm a very happy camper. So, for a bottom line, I really don't 
give a hoot about the "put 3 into x" syntax as long as

Re: English Like?

[Roger Eller via use-livecode]

On Wed, May 24, 2017 at 11:03 AM, Mark Waddingham via use-livecode <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> On 2017-05-24 15:45, dunbarx via use-livecode wrote:
>
>> There is a far more important issue here. New learners are far more
>> likely to
>> be coaxed into continuing to spend the time and effort, and to put away
>> their fears, if they see and use "put x into y". It is why we have stacks
>> and cards, and in the olden days, rolodexes. The original HC team did all
>> that on purpose.
>>
>
>
> I think a lot of us get hung up on the syntax (even me - who will always
> be quick to point out that 'syntax is just sugar' in many situations - I'm
> a polyglot when it comes to programming languages but many people are not
> and never will be). I can certainly say that whilst I am in the position I
> am in, I will not see LiveCode Script become some sort of syntactic mongrel
> (indeed the places where it is slightly 'mongrelic', I would quite like to
> have alternative non-mongrel forms much more in keeping with the language
> as a whole). However, again, there is more to LiveCode than just the syntax
> of the language.
>
> Anyway, I shall now get off my (small?) soap-box. Again this is a
> discussion, there are lots of reasons why people don't choose LiveCode and
> we try our very best to determine them, and deal with them. There are
> certainly easier ones to tackle than adding a new 'syntax style' and of
> course we intend to address those first...
>
> However, let us imagine that we were able to demonstrate that a
> significant proportion of people who might use LiveCode end up not doing so
> because of the language itself, and *if* the language had a different
> syntactic style then we would have significantly more users... Then surely
> it is worthy of some discussion and consideration?
>
> Warmest Regards,
>
> Mark.
>
> --
> Mark Waddingham ~ m...@livecode.com ~ http://www.livecode.com/
> LiveCode: Everyone can create apps
>

Firstly, THANK YOU for standing on that small soap-box, Mark.  LC and it's
English-likeness is well worth defending, IMHO.  I wouldn't be here if it
were too much more like 'standard' programming languages.  The great thing
about LC for those who prefer the more arcane syntax is they can fork it
and make it their own.  Yay OSS!

~Roger
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Re: English Like?

[Martin Koob via use-livecode]

I agree that LiveCode script should become more English like as time goes on
not only with english words but also with more natural(or intuitive)
grammar.

>From your examples I think it would be more natural to type.

   put the third index of tNumericArray into tFoo

OR

put the backColor of control "foo" into tVarBackColor

(in this example have the engine know it has to get the long id of control
"foo" to access the backColor than for the programmer to remember to assign
it first.)

Often when I am typing a script and I am not sure how to do it I wing it
first to see if what I intuitively write will work.   If that fails then go
to the dictionary or then forums.   

One example is the following.

I wanted a button in a group to access a property of the group so I typed.

   put the width of this group into tWidth.

When I apply that in the script editor it shows no errors but when I run it
it stops with the following error:

 (Chunk: can't find background)

The above line would work if I used card or stack instead of group.  In this
case I had to put.

   put the width of the owner of me into tWidth

So that is grammatically English but not the way I intuitively thought of it
and the sentence is a little unnatural.

I can fake a more natural sentence using a function to hide the way of
accessing the group to get it to read better.

   put the width of this_Group() into tGroupWidth

   function this_Group
  return the owner of me
   end this_Group

It would be nice if this is the direction of the language.

My nickel's* worth.  

* in Canada we ditched the penny a couple of years ago so every purchase is
rounded to the nearest nickel. :-)

Martin


Mark Waddingham via use-livecode wrote
> Of course, LiveCode syntax isn't perfect - it has [] for array access 
> for example - it might be nice to be
> able to do:
> 
> put index 3 of tNumericArray into tFoo
> put the foo of tAssocArray into tBar
> 
> Which is perhaps the way I'd suggest the language should go - replacing 
> what we currently use symbols (operators) for with 'English-like' forms.
> 
> It should be noted in all of this that syntax is just sugar (but don't 
> take that as meaning that sugar isn't important - if you forget the 
> sugar in recipes you often end up with inedible things). A handler such 
> as:
> 
>command Foo
>  put the long id of control "Foo" into tVar
>  put the backColor of tVar into tVarBackColor
>  set the backColor of char 3 to 5 of field 3 to tVarBackColor
>end Foo
> 
> 
> Just my two pence :)
> 
> Warmest Regards,
> 
> Mark.
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Mark Waddingham ~ 

> mark@

>  ~ http://www.livecode.com/
> LiveCode: Everyone can create apps
> 
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Re: English Like?

[prothero--- via use-livecode]

Ok,ok, I hear y'all about the approachability of the htalk language. I do know 
that when we get familiar with an intellectual construct, we tend to give 
validity to information or attitudes that agree with that construct. 
Confirmation bias seemed to be a huge factor in news "facts" acceptance in the 
recent US election, as well.

As to the subject at hand, experienced programmers are going to favor 
constructs they are already familiar with. It will not be possible to settle 
the question of whether using x=3 or put 3 into x is more logical using this 
audience. In addition, the question is ill-posed. One question is whether 
programmers experienced in other high level languages would find livecode an 
attractive option for their work. Or conversely, would people new to coding 
find htalk easy and intuitive? These are two different questions and a rigorous 
answer will most likely not come from knowledgeable livecode programmers. No 
insult is intended, as I accept that I am guilty of the same bias.

In my humble opinion, the proof is in the pudding. What can I build with this 
application and how easy will it be to build what I want? I may prefer other 
syntaxes, but what the heck? As long as I can find what I need to make what I 
want, and have this fantastic array of users who help me out, I'm a very happy 
camper. So, for a bottom line, I really don't give a hoot about the "put 3 into 
x" syntax as long as I can build what I want. My initial posting was to comment 
that a LOT of the syntax for important operations is neither English-like, nor 
intuitive.

The reason I moved to Livecode was its capabilities, multiple platform 
deployment, but mostly the potential of the development team and the dynamic 
way they are improving the product and keeping up as technology continues to 
evolve. The refactoring of a very mature code base was a very positive 
development, in my view. The responsiveness and engagement of the development 
team is another huge positive for me.

One of the sayings among academic departments is that "the battles are so 
fierce because the stakes are so small". The discussion is fun and interesting, 
but ... maybe less important.

Off to breakfast on a foggy Santa Barbara morning.

Best,
Bill P

William Prothero
http://es.earthednet.org

> On May 24, 2017, at 7:13 AM, Mike Kerner via use-livecode 
>  wrote:
> 
> That is certainly true.  The approachability of the language is the hook
> that got me hooked, even though HC was my...8th?  9th?  15th? language.
> For beginners, we should be asking what else we can do to make their life
> easier.  Community is free and it gets you in, but you can't build even the
> simplest ios app without paying apple and then fighting through all of the
> other things you have to do to get the app built and on your device just so
> you can play with it.  That would be a nifty service to provide for
> learning.  The n00b would have to upload their stack, and the ID of the one
> device they want to mess with it on.  Hmm..
> 
> On Wed, May 24, 2017 at 9:45 AM, dunbarx via use-livecode <
> use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:
> 
>> There is a far more important issue here. New learners are far more likely
>> to
>> be coaxed into continuing to spend the time and effort, and to put away
>> their fears, if they see and use "put x into y". It is why we have stacks
>> and cards, and in the olden days, rolodexes. The original HC team did all
>> that on purpose.
>> 
>> Remember "for the rest of us"?
>> 
>> Experienced users are being academic and pedantic to raise this issue as if
>> it were something important. We need new users, not old ones.
>> 
>> No offense, please.
>> 
>> Craig Newman
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> --
>> View this message in context: http://runtime-revolution.2783
>> 05.n4.nabble.com/English-Like-tp4714951p4715143.html
>> Sent from the Revolution - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>> 
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> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> On the first day, God created the heavens and the Earth
> On the second day, God created the oceans.
> On the third day, God put the animals on hold for a few hours,
>   and did a little diving.
> And God said, "This is good."
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Re: English Like?

[Mark Waddingham via use-livecode]

On 2017-05-24 15:45, dunbarx via use-livecode wrote:
There is a far more important issue here. New learners are far more 
likely to

be coaxed into continuing to spend the time and effort, and to put away
their fears, if they see and use "put x into y". It is why we have 
stacks
and cards, and in the olden days, rolodexes. The original HC team did 
all

that on purpose.


Which 'new learners'? I can absolutely assure you there is no homogenous 
group there.


At one point after years of collecting surveys and analysing data we 
managed to divide up users and non-users into 7 (or thereabouts) 
distinct groups. Recently, taking a slightly different approach we have 
reduced this to 3 (7 was too fine-grained to actually be able to do much 
with, 3 is more manageable and seems to work much better in terms of 
targetting).


Why have we done this - because we need to actually *sell* LiveCode - 
nothing sells itself. Market segmentation and understanding your users 
and potential users is perhaps the most significant piece of selling.


( Okay, that's my marketing brain cell exhausted for a while ;) ).

It is quite possibly true that as many people get put off by LiveCode 
because of its 'English-like' language, who get sucked in because of it. 
We have to concede that point - if it weren't (at least in some part) 
true we wouldn't hear such phrases as 'babyish' and 'insult to 
intelligence' that are often heard about xTalks (and LiveCode in 
particular).


(Btw, @WilliamProthero: Please don't think I'm singling your comments 
out or taking offense by them - you echo words I have heard many times - 
as have all of us I suspect when we get asked by some - 'so what's 
LiveCode like').



Remember "for the rest of us"?

Experienced users are being academic and pedantic to raise this issue 
as if

it were something important. We need new users, not old ones.

No offence, please.


No offence taken - it is a discussion :)

However, it is important to realize that whilst it is not important to 
you (I get you are quite invested in LCS - as am I, much more than is 
ever apparent at times), it *is* important to others (otherwise we 
wouldn't get some comments about the language that we do).


Syntax is an emotive issue (I could beat Python to death with some of 
the decisions they have made about syntax - but yet I still use it and 
slightly enjoy doing so for the purposes I use it for) - but it is not 
the be-all-and-end-all.


I mentioned in my last post about the 'high priest' mentality - let us 
not risk falling into the same mentality but in reverse. The time for 
being an island in our own right passed with the passing of HyperCard. I 
think it is fair to say that, these days the world of computing is 
inordinately larger and much more diverse (look at the rise in the 
HTML/JavaScript world for just one example). There is huge value in 
being 'maverick', but it perhaps makes things much harder than they 
would be otherwise.


In reality the scripting language LiveCode has, whilst one of its 
greatest strengths IMHO (otherwise I can quite honestly say I wouldn't 
be here), is only one part of the ecosystem:


  - we have an interactive IDE which allows to edit and run code 'live' 
(for some definition of live)


  - we have a large GUI framework

  - we have large collections of libraries (script, externals, LCB) all 
giving high-level access to new

features

  - in order to build and maintain LiveCode we have a large 
infrastructure which allows us to build

on 7 different platforms.

Furthermore, we all want more features - we all want LiveCode to do 
everything in a way commensurate with how LiveCode 'is'. However, the 
breadth of knowledge that requires is immense - we do quite well as a 
team, sitting here (mostly in Scotland), we also do well as a (small, in 
the grand scheme of things) global community. Our current solution to 
help achieve this 'doing everything goal' is LCB and expanding its FFI 
capabilities - but that is a tool - it still needs knowledge and a great 
deal of effort to use.


We need to attract people from other worlds, and as many as possible - 
in there heads lies so much knowledge about how to use the concrete 
things which do exist in other language ecosystems (whether it be 
JavaScript libraries, Java libraries, C# libraries, ActiveX widgets, the 
list goes on and on) it seems quite sensible to ensure that we can fold 
that knowledge into our own so we can benefit from all that currently 
exists, and not just what a team of a few can generate, or a small 
community can generate.


Pre-7 what I suggested in my previous email was just not possible (in 
terms of a different syntax style) - or, should I say, the cost of 
attempting to do it would be far in excess of its potential benefit at 
the time. However, the mai

Re: English Like?

[Mike Kerner via use-livecode]

The problem with this idea is the need to register the device through
apple's developer portal, but I wonder if testFlight could be leveraged to
make that work.  TestFlight apps are time-limited, so that takes care of
that problem...

On Wed, May 24, 2017 at 10:13 AM, Mike Kerner 
wrote:

> That is certainly true.  The approachability of the language is the hook
> that got me hooked, even though HC was my...8th?  9th?  15th? language.
> For beginners, we should be asking what else we can do to make their life
> easier.  Community is free and it gets you in, but you can't build even the
> simplest ios app without paying apple and then fighting through all of the
> other things you have to do to get the app built and on your device just so
> you can play with it.  That would be a nifty service to provide for
> learning.  The n00b would have to upload their stack, and the ID of the one
> device they want to mess with it on.  Hmm..
>
> On Wed, May 24, 2017 at 9:45 AM, dunbarx via use-livecode <
> use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:
>
>> There is a far more important issue here. New learners are far more
>> likely to
>> be coaxed into continuing to spend the time and effort, and to put away
>> their fears, if they see and use "put x into y". It is why we have stacks
>> and cards, and in the olden days, rolodexes. The original HC team did all
>> that on purpose.
>>
>> Remember "for the rest of us"?
>>
>> Experienced users are being academic and pedantic to raise this issue as
>> if
>> it were something important. We need new users, not old ones.
>>
>> No offense, please.
>>
>> Craig Newman
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> View this message in context: http://runtime-revolution.2783
>> 05.n4.nabble.com/English-Like-tp4714951p4715143.html
>> Sent from the Revolution - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>>
>> ___
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>> subscription preferences:
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>>
>
>
>
> --
> On the first day, God created the heavens and the Earth
> On the second day, God created the oceans.
> On the third day, God put the animals on hold for a few hours,
>and did a little diving.
> And God said, "This is good."
>



-- 
On the first day, God created the heavens and the Earth
On the second day, God created the oceans.
On the third day, God put the animals on hold for a few hours,
   and did a little diving.
And God said, "This is good."
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Re: English Like?

[Mike Kerner via use-livecode]

That is certainly true.  The approachability of the language is the hook
that got me hooked, even though HC was my...8th?  9th?  15th? language.
For beginners, we should be asking what else we can do to make their life
easier.  Community is free and it gets you in, but you can't build even the
simplest ios app without paying apple and then fighting through all of the
other things you have to do to get the app built and on your device just so
you can play with it.  That would be a nifty service to provide for
learning.  The n00b would have to upload their stack, and the ID of the one
device they want to mess with it on.  Hmm..

On Wed, May 24, 2017 at 9:45 AM, dunbarx via use-livecode <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> There is a far more important issue here. New learners are far more likely
> to
> be coaxed into continuing to spend the time and effort, and to put away
> their fears, if they see and use "put x into y". It is why we have stacks
> and cards, and in the olden days, rolodexes. The original HC team did all
> that on purpose.
>
> Remember "for the rest of us"?
>
> Experienced users are being academic and pedantic to raise this issue as if
> it were something important. We need new users, not old ones.
>
> No offense, please.
>
> Craig Newman
>
>
>
> --
> View this message in context: http://runtime-revolution.2783
> 05.n4.nabble.com/English-Like-tp4714951p4715143.html
> Sent from the Revolution - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
> ___
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> use-livecode@lists.runrev.com
> Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your
> subscription preferences:
> http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
>



-- 
On the first day, God created the heavens and the Earth
On the second day, God created the oceans.
On the third day, God put the animals on hold for a few hours,
   and did a little diving.
And God said, "This is good."
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Re: English Like?

[dunbarx via use-livecode]

There is a far more important issue here. New learners are far more likely to
be coaxed into continuing to spend the time and effort, and to put away
their fears, if they see and use "put x into y". It is why we have stacks
and cards, and in the olden days, rolodexes. The original HC team did all
that on purpose.

Remember "for the rest of us"?

Experienced users are being academic and pedantic to raise this issue as if
it were something important. We need new users, not old ones.

No offense, please.

Craig Newman



--
View this message in context: 
http://runtime-revolution.278305.n4.nabble.com/English-Like-tp4714951p4715143.html
Sent from the Revolution - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

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Re: English Like?

[Mark Waddingham via use-livecode]

On 2017-05-24 14:52, Lagi Pittas via use-livecode wrote:

Mark

You are a big Tease.


Hehe - I don't mean to be a tease - making correct/good technical 
choices as to how things should work under the hood opens up an array of 
options for the future. We always try and design things with that in 
mind.


The 7 refactor was a large and rather difficult project, the full fruits 
of which have yet to become apparent. I can't say when some of the 
things we might like to do might happen, but at least they are possible 
now; when they weren't before.


Warmest Regards,

Mark.

--
Mark Waddingham ~ m...@livecode.com ~ http://www.livecode.com/
LiveCode: Everyone can create apps

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Re: English Like?

[Lagi Pittas via use-livecode]

Mark

You are a big Tease.

Lagi

On 24 May 2017 at 13:13, Mark Waddingham via use-livecode <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> On 2017-05-17 22:41, William Prothero via use-livecode wrote:
>
>> Folks:
>> It can be difficult for long term users of an application to
>> appreciate the “exceptions” to the philosophy of a dev app. I think
>> the livecode community is affected by “familiarity” over clarity
>> sometimes. For years (when Director was a viable dev platform), I had
>> a negative feeling about Hypercard type syntax. I had done some pretty
>> extensive programming in Hypercard and Supercard too. I liked the way
>> Director worked. I liked that it did not insult my intelligence by
>> requiring “put 3 into x” instead of the universal "x=3” syntax that
>> all algebra students lewarn in gradeschool, When Director died, I
>> looked around, held my nose, and jumped to livecode, and now I’m glad
>> I jumped that initial negative barrier. But, I take exception to the
>> many claims that livecode is “english-like” (in spite of the many
>> “english-like” commands), especially if you want to do the advanced
>> work that most of the users do.
>>
>
> Finally getting around to responding to this, as it is something which
> interests me... Specifically, we often hear about how LC's syntax
> 'insults intelligence' or is 'babyish' etc. However, I have to say that
> I've
> never understood *why* really.
>
> The only two reasons I really come up with are:
>
>   1) The 'high-priest' argument: programming languages should use somewhat
> arcane and obscure means of expression so that it limits who would want to
> / can use them.
>
>   2) The 'burnt by limited English-like systems in the past' argument: the
> incorrect association between being 'English-like' syntax wise, and not
> being a full, general, programming environment (the point here being the
> limits are in the implementations, not in the concept).
>
> I'd be really quite interested to know what other people think here.
>
> In particular, the use of 'put X into Y' rather than 'X = Y' comes up
> periodically.
>
> 
> The mathematician in me has to point out that the argument that 'X = Y' is
> 'better because we learn it in algebra' is technically erroneous. Algebra
> (and mathematics in general) operates on pure substitution - all values are
> singletons and the *only* thing which is equal to any value, is the value
> itself. Put another way, algebra does not have 'variables' in the sense we
> mean it in computing, 'X = 3' really does mean that X *is* 3, not that it
> should have 3 assigned to it, hence in a mathematical expression you can
> replace every occurrence of X *with* 3. (Modelling computer languages in
> the pure world of mathematics requires a bit of mental leap - what we
> consider a procedure is transformed into a function on the set of all
> possible states of the computer it is running on, rather than as sequential
> actions which occur on a single mutable state). Indeed, many languages
> choose ':=' for assignment and not '=' for this reason (it also means you
> don't have to use '==' for equality, and can use '=' which is a much better
> fit with what we do learn in Algebra).
> 
>
> Okay, so back to the point, if one wants a language to be readable and
> easily understandable it needs to be consistent. So, in isolation, perhaps
> have 'X := Y' for assignment might seem more economic. However, LiveCode's
> 'put' command is actually a fair bit more flexible. You can do:
>
>   put X into Y
>   put X after Y
>   put X before Y
>
> So if you have code which does:
>
>   put "foo" after X
>   put X into Y
>   put "bar" before Y
>
> You end up with:
>
>   put "foo" after X
>   Y := X
>   put "bar" before Y
>
> Here you end up having to do mental contortions because the sense of the
> 'before' and 'after' forms are opposite to the assignment (copy) form -
> easy readability vanishes. In particular, put flows from left to right, in
> contrast to the right to leftness of ':='.
>
> Certainly one could replace 'put X into Y' with 'X := Y', and even 'put X
> after Y' with 'X &= Y' - but what about before? 'X =& Y'? e.g.
>
>   X &= "foo"
>   Y := X
>   Y =& "bar"
>
> This looks really quite subtle to me, much easier to miss that one is
> 'append' and the

Re: English Like?

[Mike Kerner via use-livecode]

One of the other things that the xtalk languages have that makes them more
appealing is synonyms (and similarly, abbreviations), which makes it a much
more personalized experience as a writer with fewer mental gymnastics.  I
tend to prefer the longer, more verbose forms when writing.  I will open
file/read from file/write to file/close file even though I could just use
the URL-file form.  I think it reads better, later, when I'm trying to
figure out what I did.  Some people prefer "cd", and I prefer "card".
Think about the different ways to reference a group, or to write a comment.

To Mark's comment on addressing arrays differently, the xTalk way would be
to just add a different way, not change the existing way.  Most of the code
that most of us write will be managed and maintained by one person.  It is
therefore more important to give us more ways to say the same thing so that
we can help our future self understand what we were thinking when we wrote
the original.

On Wed, May 24, 2017 at 8:13 AM, Mark Waddingham via use-livecode <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> On 2017-05-17 22:41, William Prothero via use-livecode wrote:
>
>> Folks:
>> It can be difficult for long term users of an application to
>> appreciate the “exceptions” to the philosophy of a dev app. I think
>> the livecode community is affected by “familiarity” over clarity
>> sometimes. For years (when Director was a viable dev platform), I had
>> a negative feeling about Hypercard type syntax. I had done some pretty
>> extensive programming in Hypercard and Supercard too. I liked the way
>> Director worked. I liked that it did not insult my intelligence by
>> requiring “put 3 into x” instead of the universal "x=3” syntax that
>> all algebra students lewarn in gradeschool, When Director died, I
>> looked around, held my nose, and jumped to livecode, and now I’m glad
>> I jumped that initial negative barrier. But, I take exception to the
>> many claims that livecode is “english-like” (in spite of the many
>> “english-like” commands), especially if you want to do the advanced
>> work that most of the users do.
>>
>
> Finally getting around to responding to this, as it is something which
> interests me... Specifically, we often hear about how LC's syntax
> 'insults intelligence' or is 'babyish' etc. However, I have to say that
> I've
> never understood *why* really.
>
> The only two reasons I really come up with are:
>
>   1) The 'high-priest' argument: programming languages should use somewhat
> arcane and obscure means of expression so that it limits who would want to
> / can use them.
>
>   2) The 'burnt by limited English-like systems in the past' argument: the
> incorrect association between being 'English-like' syntax wise, and not
> being a full, general, programming environment (the point here being the
> limits are in the implementations, not in the concept).
>
> I'd be really quite interested to know what other people think here.
>
> In particular, the use of 'put X into Y' rather than 'X = Y' comes up
> periodically.
>
> 
> The mathematician in me has to point out that the argument that 'X = Y' is
> 'better because we learn it in algebra' is technically erroneous. Algebra
> (and mathematics in general) operates on pure substitution - all values are
> singletons and the *only* thing which is equal to any value, is the value
> itself. Put another way, algebra does not have 'variables' in the sense we
> mean it in computing, 'X = 3' really does mean that X *is* 3, not that it
> should have 3 assigned to it, hence in a mathematical expression you can
> replace every occurrence of X *with* 3. (Modelling computer languages in
> the pure world of mathematics requires a bit of mental leap - what we
> consider a procedure is transformed into a function on the set of all
> possible states of the computer it is running on, rather than as sequential
> actions which occur on a single mutable state). Indeed, many languages
> choose ':=' for assignment and not '=' for this reason (it also means you
> don't have to use '==' for equality, and can use '=' which is a much better
> fit with what we do learn in Algebra).
> 
>
> Okay, so back to the point, if one wants a language to be readable and
> easily understandable it needs to be consistent. So, in isolation, perhaps
> have 'X := Y' for assignment might seem more economic. However, LiveCode's
> 'put' command is actually a fair bit more flexible. You can do:
>
>   put X into Y
>   put X after Y
>   put X before 

Re: English Like?

[Mark Waddingham via use-livecode]

On 2017-05-17 22:41, William Prothero via use-livecode wrote:

Folks:
It can be difficult for long term users of an application to
appreciate the “exceptions” to the philosophy of a dev app. I think
the livecode community is affected by “familiarity” over clarity
sometimes. For years (when Director was a viable dev platform), I had
a negative feeling about Hypercard type syntax. I had done some pretty
extensive programming in Hypercard and Supercard too. I liked the way
Director worked. I liked that it did not insult my intelligence by
requiring “put 3 into x” instead of the universal "x=3” syntax that
all algebra students lewarn in gradeschool, When Director died, I
looked around, held my nose, and jumped to livecode, and now I’m glad
I jumped that initial negative barrier. But, I take exception to the
many claims that livecode is “english-like” (in spite of the many
“english-like” commands), especially if you want to do the advanced
work that most of the users do.


Finally getting around to responding to this, as it is something which
interests me... Specifically, we often hear about how LC's syntax
'insults intelligence' or is 'babyish' etc. However, I have to say that 
I've

never understood *why* really.

The only two reasons I really come up with are:

  1) The 'high-priest' argument: programming languages should use 
somewhat arcane and obscure means of expression so that it limits who 
would want to / can use them.


  2) The 'burnt by limited English-like systems in the past' argument: 
the incorrect association between being 'English-like' syntax wise, and 
not being a full, general, programming environment (the point here being 
the limits are in the implementations, not in the concept).


I'd be really quite interested to know what other people think here.

In particular, the use of 'put X into Y' rather than 'X = Y' comes up
periodically.


The mathematician in me has to point out that the argument that 'X = Y' 
is 'better because we learn it in algebra' is technically erroneous. 
Algebra (and mathematics in general) operates on pure substitution - all 
values are singletons and the *only* thing which is equal to any value, 
is the value itself. Put another way, algebra does not have 'variables' 
in the sense we mean it in computing, 'X = 3' really does mean that X 
*is* 3, not that it should have 3 assigned to it, hence in a 
mathematical expression you can replace every occurrence of X *with* 3. 
(Modelling computer languages in the pure world of mathematics requires 
a bit of mental leap - what we consider a procedure is transformed into 
a function on the set of all possible states of the computer it is 
running on, rather than as sequential actions which occur on a single 
mutable state). Indeed, many languages choose ':=' for assignment and 
not '=' for this reason (it also means you don't have to use '==' for 
equality, and can use '=' which is a much better fit with what we do 
learn in Algebra).



Okay, so back to the point, if one wants a language to be readable and 
easily understandable it needs to be consistent. So, in isolation, 
perhaps have 'X := Y' for assignment might seem more economic. However, 
LiveCode's 'put' command is actually a fair bit more flexible. You can 
do:


  put X into Y
  put X after Y
  put X before Y

So if you have code which does:

  put "foo" after X
  put X into Y
  put "bar" before Y

You end up with:

  put "foo" after X
  Y := X
  put "bar" before Y

Here you end up having to do mental contortions because the sense of the 
'before' and 'after' forms are opposite to the assignment (copy) form - 
easy readability vanishes. In particular, put flows from left to right, 
in contrast to the right to leftness of ':='.


Certainly one could replace 'put X into Y' with 'X := Y', and even 'put 
X after Y' with 'X &= Y' - but what about before? 'X =& Y'? e.g.


  X &= "foo"
  Y := X
  Y =& "bar"

This looks really quite subtle to me, much easier to miss that one is 
'append' and the other is 'prepend'.


One thing I think LiveCode does do because of its slightly more verbose 
syntax is that it encourages readability (and as a result perhaps more 
maintainability) in code - something which other languages do not 
directly... Indeed, writing C programs which are readable and 
maintainable can take a great deal of time to learn *how* to do well - 
the language in and of itself doesn't really help you much at all. (That 
isn't to say it isn't possible to write unreadable code in LiveCode, 
because it clearly is - muddy abstractions can cause that as much as the 
syntax it

English Like?

[Alejandro Tejada via use-livecode]

on Thu May 18 2017, William Prothero wrote:

> I think that comments by relative newbies, who don’t have
> the same experience with LC are very important.
> I’ve mentioned several times that some of the tutorials
> and lessons can miss things that the author takes for
> granted. I’m particularly sensitive to this because of
> my long experience teaching college students having
> them use my software.

In my personal experience, most teachers and students
just want that every computer program looks and
behave like Microsoft Word... :-(

> It is very difficult for the developer of the software
> to avoid making assumptions based on experience and
> it takes special attention. One organization I worked
> with did eye-tracking with naive users to validate their
> web applications. I don’t think that’s needed for livecode,
> but more attention to this, when publishing teaching
> documents would be very helpful.

Probably, the answer is HyperText...
In every tutorial or Livecode Lesson, please include hypertext
links or modal pop ups that explain most programming concepts
and LiveCode Script (LCS) keywords. Then, check which
links are most visited and include that information in
other tutorials. This information is really valuable
for creating new tutorials.

> This was a very significant problem with the first course
> on using LC to make apps that came with the iPhone.
> I ended up dropping out because I was wasting so much of
> my time trying to figure out bugs and what should have been
> in the tutorial. These resources may be the first time a
> person really gets into Livecode and the kinds of difficulties
> I encountered could be very off-putting to a new user.

Ideally, every course or lesson should start with a
downloadable stack or executable. In this way, you would
know beforehand if this code will run in your own setup...
for example: All multimedia tutorials are useless in Linux,
because still we could not play sounds or movies.

> Anyway, I encourage the authors of tutorial software
> to pay significant attention to learning resources
> they put out for the public to make sure the learning
> goes smoothly.

An indispensable feature for 21st century tutorials is
the ability for changing content to match users
personal learning's style.

Al
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Re: English Like?

[William Prothero via use-livecode]

Richard:
Thanks for the kind words. I think that comments by relative newbies, who don’t 
have the same experience with LC are very important. I’ve mentioned several 
times that some of the tutorials and lessons can miss things that the author 
takes for granted. I’m particularly sensitive to this because of my long 
experience teaching college students having them use my software. 

It is very difficult for the developer of the software to avoid making 
assumptions based on experience and it takes special attention. One 
organization I worked with did eye-tracking with naive users to validate their 
web applications. I don’t think that’s needed for livecode, but more attention 
to this, when publishing teaching documents would be very helpful. 

This was a very significant problem with the first course on using LC to make 
apps that came with the iPhone. I ended up dropping out because I was wasting 
so much of my time trying to figure out bugs and what should have been in the 
tutorial. These resources may be the first time a person really gets into 
Livecode and the kinds of difficulties I encountered could be very off-putting 
to a new user.

Anyway, I encourage the authors of tutorial software to pay significant 
attention to learning resources they put out for the public to make sure the 
learning goes smoothly.

Best,
Bill


> 
> But posts like yours are VERY helpful for those of us who teach newcomers.  
> When we've learned these things too long ago it's easy to forget they were 
> ever unintuitive at first, which may miss opportunities for more effective 
> on-boarding.
> 
> -- 
> Richard Gaskin
> Fourth World Systems
> Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
> 
> ambassa...@fourthworld.comhttp://www.FourthWorld.com
> 
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Re: English Like?

[Richard Gaskin via use-livecode]

William Prothero wrote:

> When Director died, I looked around, held my nose, and jumped to
> livecode, and now I’m glad I jumped that initial negative barrier.
> But, I take exception to the many claims that livecode is
> “english-like” (in spite of the many “english-like” commands),
> especially if you want to do the advanced work that most of the users
> do.

The team seems to share the same feeling; you'll find most references to 
"English-like" are historical.


LiveCode is readable, almost to the point of being self-documenting, and 
generally quite learnable,


But no language designed for communicating with a machine benefits much 
from from attempting to follow Chomsky rules for natural/accidental 
languages we use when communicating with humans; very different 
cognitive abilities in the listener, very different usage goals, leading 
to very different design patterns.


Your specific question is an interesting one in terms of syntax consistency:

> For example, suppose I want to do the very basic task of coding a
> conditional that test for the name of a card. What I would intuitively
> expect is:
>
> put the name of this cd into cdName
>
> What I get for cdName is:  Suppose the name of the cd is theName
> card “theName”
>
> Ok, now I only want the name, so I do
>
> if word 2 of the name of this cd is “theName” then
>   —do my stuff
> end if
>
> No, I don’t get that. First, I need to do:
>
> put word 2 of cdName into cdName
> replace quote with “” in cdName
> if word 2 of the name of this cd is “theName” then
>   —do my stuff, this works
> end if
>
> I don’t call this intuitive.  I just spent more time than I should
> have sorting this out.

I'm afraid you'll have to blame the authors of the mother tongue, 
HyperTalk, on that one.


Your expectations a perfectly reasonable:  with most properties we ask 
for a value and we get that value, without also getting some other 
metadata like object type.


Imagine if:

  put the rect of button 1

...returned:

  rectangle "20,20,120,44"

That would be annoying as hell.  And yet with object names that's pretty 
much what happens, where we have to add more (an extra keyword) to get less:


  put the name of button 1

...yields:

  button "Bob"

But:

  put the short name of button 1

...yields:

  Bob

Fortunately most properties work as expected, and the anomalous behavior 
of the name property (and only a few others) are easily learned and 
quite useful.


But posts like yours are VERY helpful for those of us who teach 
newcomers.  When we've learned these things too long ago it's easy to 
forget they were ever unintuitive at first, which may miss opportunities 
for more effective on-boarding.


--
 Richard Gaskin
 Fourth World Systems
 Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
 
 ambassa...@fourthworld.comhttp://www.FourthWorld.com

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Re: English Like?

[Marc Siskin via use-livecode]

Bill,

The solution to your issue is to use the short name version of name.

Marc

On May 17, 2017, at 1:41 PM, William Prothero via use-livecode 
mailto:use-livecode@lists.runrev.com>> wrote:

Folks:
It can be difficult for long term users of an application to appreciate the 
“exceptions” to the philosophy of a dev app. I think the livecode community is 
affected by “familiarity” over clarity sometimes. For years (when Director was 
a viable dev platform), I had a negative feeling about Hypercard type syntax. I 
had done some pretty extensive programming in Hypercard and Supercard too. I 
liked the way Director worked. I liked that it did not insult my intelligence 
by requiring “put 3 into x” instead of the universal "x=3” syntax that all 
algebra students lewarn in gradeschool, When Director died, I looked around, 
held my nose, and jumped to livecode, and now I’m glad I jumped that initial 
negative barrier. But, I take exception to the many claims that livecode is 
“english-like” (in spite of the many “english-like” commands), especially if 
you want to do the advanced work that most of the users do.

For example, suppose I want to do the very basic task of coding a conditional 
that test for the name of a card. What I would intuitively expect is:

put the name of this cd into cdName

What I get for cdName is:  Suppose the name of the cd is theName
card “theName”

Ok, now I only want the name, so I do

if word 2 of the name of this cd is “theName” then
 —do my stuff
end if

No, I don’t get that. First, I need to do:

put word 2 of cdName into cdName
replace quote with “” in cdName
if word 2 of the name of this cd is “theName” then
 —do my stuff, this works
end if

I don’t call this intuitive.  I just spent more time than I should have sorting 
this out.

So, how should a company supporting a platform deal with this? Macromedia chose 
a really nice strategy when they added dot syntax, which its users wanted. What 
they did was implement a flag named “useLegacyCode”  (or something like that). 
This way the legacy users could just set that flag and couldn’t complain about 
their apps breaking, and the new apps could be built on a more refined code 
base.

This could be a strategy for the LiveCode mothership to implement when it 
becomes desirable to implement new, improved, and different code syntax that 
may conflict with legacy syntax. There are other non-intuitive oddities like 
the example I gave above. If livecode wants to embody “english-like” syntax, 
there could be numerous improvements to help the newby. Conversely, perhaps 
another language entirely might compile to the same tokens as the current 
version, but that’s a job for another huge effort.

Just sayin'…..

Regards,
Bill P,

William A. Prothero
http://earthlearningsolution.org/

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---
Marc Siskin
Manager, Modern Language Resource Center
Carnegie Mellon University
msis...@andrew.cmu.edu<mailto:msis...@andrew.cmu.edu>



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English Like?

[William Prothero via use-livecode]

Folks:
It can be difficult for long term users of an application to appreciate the 
“exceptions” to the philosophy of a dev app. I think the livecode community is 
affected by “familiarity” over clarity sometimes. For years (when Director was 
a viable dev platform), I had a negative feeling about Hypercard type syntax. I 
had done some pretty extensive programming in Hypercard and Supercard too. I 
liked the way Director worked. I liked that it did not insult my intelligence 
by requiring “put 3 into x” instead of the universal "x=3” syntax that all 
algebra students lewarn in gradeschool, When Director died, I looked around, 
held my nose, and jumped to livecode, and now I’m glad I jumped that initial 
negative barrier. But, I take exception to the many claims that livecode is 
“english-like” (in spite of the many “english-like” commands), especially if 
you want to do the advanced work that most of the users do.

For example, suppose I want to do the very basic task of coding a conditional 
that test for the name of a card. What I would intuitively expect is:

put the name of this cd into cdName

What I get for cdName is:  Suppose the name of the cd is theName
card “theName”

Ok, now I only want the name, so I do

if word 2 of the name of this cd is “theName” then
  —do my stuff
end if

No, I don’t get that. First, I need to do:

put word 2 of cdName into cdName
replace quote with “” in cdName
if word 2 of the name of this cd is “theName” then
  —do my stuff, this works
end if

I don’t call this intuitive.  I just spent more time than I should have sorting 
this out. 

So, how should a company supporting a platform deal with this? Macromedia chose 
a really nice strategy when they added dot syntax, which its users wanted. What 
they did was implement a flag named “useLegacyCode”  (or something like that). 
This way the legacy users could just set that flag and couldn’t complain about 
their apps breaking, and the new apps could be built on a more refined code 
base.

This could be a strategy for the LiveCode mothership to implement when it 
becomes desirable to implement new, improved, and different code syntax that 
may conflict with legacy syntax. There are other non-intuitive oddities like 
the example I gave above. If livecode wants to embody “english-like” syntax, 
there could be numerous improvements to help the newby. Conversely, perhaps 
another language entirely might compile to the same tokens as the current 
version, but that’s a job for another huge effort.

Just sayin'…..

Regards,
Bill P,

William A. Prothero
http://earthlearningsolution.org/

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