Re: [OT}] Hypercard and an uneasy read.
I think the reason is because he wanted to be able to reverse the decision, if at any point Apple wanted to resurrect the product in the future. Most software companies that go under do not open source their stuff, if for no other reason than to say to the public who didn't want to pay for it, Okay then, NOBODY WINS!!! Bob On Dec 2, 2011, at 11:16 PM, Peter Alcibiades wrote: Yes, Jobs killed a lot of things that were losing money - but that does not explain why Apple would not open-source Hypercard if it didn't want to support it. It was possible to stop the losses without killing the product, but he chose not to. There had to be a reason for that. ___ use-livecode mailing list 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
Re: [OT}] Hypercard and an uneasy read.
I had a little company that went bust due to lack of funds. When that happens, the assets of the business must be sold off to pay the creditors (we owed national insurance, PAYE tax, hosting services, salaries, etc). In hopes of trying to raise cash to pay off those debts, the solicitor would *never* give something away when they could sell it. I suppose I could have offered them a pittance for the software and then open sourced it, but as I hadn't drawn a salary in 2 years, that was difficult...and I'm not sure why I would have done it anyway, as it needed specialist knowledge to run the software. I'm sure there could be elements of I'm going home and taking my ball with me, but in our case it came down to cash. That said, I doubt that's why Jobs didn't open source it. I would suspect that for him and his team it's always been about making the design of everything special...so special, you must be an alcolyte to play. (Apple can charge alcolytes, because they'll go to enough trouble). Average humans won't go to the trouble to create software for a closed system, so Apple guarantees it's 30%. -Ken On 05/12/2011 17:17, Bob Sneidar wrote: I think the reason is because he wanted to be able to reverse the decision, if at any point Apple wanted to resurrect the product in the future. Most software companies that go under do not open source their stuff, if for no other reason than to say to the public who didn't want to pay for it, Okay then, NOBODY WINS!!! ___ use-livecode mailing list 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
Re: [OT}] Hypercard and an uneasy read.
Le 3 déc. 2011 à 08:16, Peter Alcibiades a écrit : Apple's worst enemy at that time was its fanatical user base I am one of these ! (fanatical is a bit overdone...) The real question is : why this kind of persons exists ? ___ use-livecode mailing list 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
Re: [OT}] Hypercard and an uneasy read.
On 12/03/2011 09:16 AM, Peter Alcibiades wrote: Yes, Jobs killed a lot of things that were losing money - but that does not explain why Apple would not open-source Hypercard if it didn't want to support it. It was possible to stop the losses without killing the product, but he chose not to. There had to be a reason for that. I am unaware of Apple (or Microsoft, for that matter) ever having open-sourced anything. I have the feeling that the open-sourced mentality is so very different from the Apple mentality that the 2 just won't mix. ___ use-livecode mailing list 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
Re: [OT}] Hypercard and an uneasy read.
To get you started, look into how many technologies are involved in these few examples: Darwin WebKit Firewire TrueType Bonjour Here's a page of over 200 open source aspects to OSX: http://www.apple.com/opensource/ On Dec 3, 2011, at 3:38 AM, Richmond wrote: I am unaware of Apple (or Microsoft, for that matter) ever having open-sourced anything. ___ use-livecode mailing list 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
Re: [OT}] Hypercard and an uneasy read.
That list is better described as a list of open source projects that Apple has contributed to. Darwin is composed of code developed by Apple, as well as code derived from NeXTSTEP, BSD, and other free software projects. WebKit is a fork of KHTML Many open source projects require you to publish the changes you make to them if you derive some commercial benefit. So that is a lot of what you see on that list. So TrueType and Bonjour may have come from Apple. But Apache and bash, I don't think so. Todd On Sat, Dec 3, 2011 at 6:11 AM, Colin Holgate co...@verizon.net wrote: To get you started, look into how many technologies are involved in these few examples: Darwin WebKit Firewire TrueType Bonjour Here's a page of over 200 open source aspects to OSX: http://www.apple.com/opensource/ On Dec 3, 2011, at 3:38 AM, Richmond wrote: I am unaware of Apple (or Microsoft, for that matter) ever having open-sourced anything. ___ use-livecode mailing list 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 -- Todd Geist (805) 419-9382 ___ use-livecode mailing list 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
Re: [OT}] Hypercard and an uneasy read.
On 12/03/2011 04:11 PM, Colin Holgate wrote: To get you started, look into how many technologies are involved in these few examples: Darwin WebKit Firewire TrueType Bonjour Here's a page of over 200 open source aspects to OSX: http://www.apple.com/opensource/ Thanks . . . :) On Dec 3, 2011, at 3:38 AM, Richmond wrote: I am unaware of Apple (or Microsoft, for that matter) ever having open-sourced anything. ___ use-livecode mailing list 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 ___ use-livecode mailing list 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
Re: [OT}] Hypercard and an uneasy read.
On 12/02/2011 02:50 AM, Mike Bonner wrote: Bob said: Let me propose that a solution cannot be simpler than the problem it is meant to solve. Yep. The most important part of programming/building/creation in general is defining the problem. Well ok, for me the biggest issue is making it pretty since I have zero design intuition. But that problem doesn't show up until the defining has been successfully completed. What I love about computers and programming is that you (hopefully) only have to solve a given problem ONCE. At least untilinsert data stream, or requirement here changes. That tells me what is wrong with me and my programming methods . . . :) I seem to solve the same problems each year, year after year, again and again. ___ use-livecode mailing list 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 ___ use-livecode mailing list 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
Re: [OT}] Hypercard and an uneasy read.
On Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 5:37 PM, Bob Sneidar b...@twft.com wrote: Let me propose that a solution cannot be simpler than the problem it is meant to solve. Assuming that this is true, it is nevertheless possible for a solution to be far, far more complex than the problem it is intended to solve. One quote representing this concept is: Some people, when confronted with a problem, think “I know, I'll use regular expressions.” Now they have two problems. I'll go further than my original statement and say that *every* solution is far more complex than the problem it is intended to solve. HyperCard was no exception. If the problem to be solved is build a rolodex (and you're not allowed to simply use the built-in one) consider how much work went into the built-in rolodex. By comparison, my problem statement is nearly complete; add a few semi-obvious statements about searching, printing, etc., and you have a working product spec, but to implement that in HyperCard would take significant effort. Anyone know how many lines of code there are in the built-in rolodex stack? Every language I've used has some feature that I wish every other language I use has. As one example, in FileMaker, all references are abstracted, so if you rename a table, or a column, or a layout, etc., all references to that object in your code will automatically adjust. *That* is a feature I would pay serious money for, but I don't know any other language/environment that has it. Not to be a grump (warning, I'm about to be grumpy) but there are several aspects of LiveCode as it stands that are significantly more complex than they should be. The one that has been tormenting me over the last few weeks is the datagrid, and its lack of native syntax. put row 3 to 8 of column firstname,column lastname or something like it should just work. Stepping away from the soap box now... ___ use-livecode mailing list 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
Re: [OT}] Hypercard and an uneasy read.
Sorry, not very well, this is only a race to the bottom (nivellement par le bas in French) Le 2 déc. 2011 à 03:09, Petrides, M.D. Marian a écrit : That's for sure. One other missing feature in Hypercard that was not mentioned is cross-platform support, which LC does very well. (Thank Heavens!) On Dec 1, 2011, at 7:02 PM, J. Landman Gay wrote: LiveCode has grown to be much more capable, as it turns out. I'm glad we ended up here. ___ use-livecode mailing list 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 ___ use-livecode mailing list 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
Re: [OT}] Hypercard and an uneasy read.
To clarify, I would have all the features of Mac OS X Lion (all the interface, Core MIDI, Core Graphics, etc ...) We are far of that... What will happen when Microsoft will deliver Windows 8? As Microsoft was based on Mac OS to progress, a common line persisted, but tomorrow, the gap may widen further ... I never liked the LiveCode's cross-platform approach ... Le 2 déc. 2011 à 10:38, René Micout a écrit : Sorry, not very well, this is only a race to the bottom (nivellement par le bas in French) Le 2 déc. 2011 à 03:09, Petrides, M.D. Marian a écrit : That's for sure. One other missing feature in Hypercard that was not mentioned is cross-platform support, which LC does very well. (Thank Heavens!) On Dec 1, 2011, at 7:02 PM, J. Landman Gay wrote: LiveCode has grown to be much more capable, as it turns out. I'm glad we ended up here. ___ use-livecode mailing list 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 ___ use-livecode mailing list 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 ___ use-livecode mailing list 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
Re: [OT}] Hypercard and an uneasy read.
Le 2 déc. 2011 à 02:15, Todd Geist a écrit : I think that breakthroughs in technology are really about taking a complex problem and making it simpler. The best solutions are the simplest ones. Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction. - Albert Einstein Todd -- Pierre Sahores mobile : 06 03 95 77 70 www.sahores-conseil.com ___ use-livecode mailing list 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
Re: [OT}] Hypercard and an uneasy read.
Both of the apply to a simple example. How to get something from a combination locked glass case. But circumstances and requirements are a big part of how much complexity can be removed. As does background and world view. An engineer might study how the lock works and try to determine if it can be mechanically subverted.(assumes lost combination, and/or a thief soon to be incarcerated.) The owner will punch in the combination. Law abiding citizens will go through the owner for access to the case. A thief will bring a hammer. All valid solutions to the problem, but sometimes additional complexity is a required part of the solution. I think that breakthroughs in technology are really about taking a complex problem and making it simpler. The best solutions are the simplest ones. Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction. ___ use-livecode mailing list 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
Re: [OT}] Hypercard and an uneasy read.
Hi all, Am 02.12.2011 um 14:32 schrieb Pierre Sahores: Among the comments of this interesting http://www.loper-os.org/?p=568; paper..., Phillip says: November 30, 2011 at 4:49 pm It was killed because Hypercard on an iPod is all you would ever need to buy. How do you spell APP Store killer? HYPERCARD. BC says: December 1, 2011 at 12:06 pm Yes, I know why HyperCard was allowed to “die”. With all respect to Mr. Jobs, HyperCard was considered a cancer and was put through executive nuclear-chemo therapy. PS : ... and Larry Ellison killed Oracle Media Objects in the mean time to faire place nette to Java... Oh well, that was a great piece of software! I really miss its REAL Table object! ;-) ... 2cts ;-) -- Pierre Sahores mobile : 06 03 95 77 70 www.sahores-conseil.com Best Klaus -- Klaus Major http://www.major-k.de kl...@major.on-rev.com ___ use-livecode mailing list 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
Re: [OT}] Hypercard and an uneasy read.
I did't got the bucks to license Oracle Media Objects ;-/ What was this REAL Table object! ;-) you seems to say we can't redesign it in LC ? ;D Kind regards, Pierre Le 2 déc. 2011 à 14:39, Klaus on-rev a écrit : Hi all, Am 02.12.2011 um 14:32 schrieb Pierre Sahores: Among the comments of this interesting http://www.loper-os.org/?p=568; paper..., Phillip says: November 30, 2011 at 4:49 pm It was killed because Hypercard on an iPod is all you would ever need to buy. How do you spell APP Store killer? HYPERCARD. BC says: December 1, 2011 at 12:06 pm Yes, I know why HyperCard was allowed to “die”. With all respect to Mr. Jobs, HyperCard was considered a cancer and was put through executive nuclear-chemo therapy. PS : ... and Larry Ellison killed Oracle Media Objects in the mean time to faire place nette to Java... Oh well, that was a great piece of software! I really miss its REAL Table object! ;-) ... 2cts ;-) -- Pierre Sahores mobile : 06 03 95 77 70 www.sahores-conseil.com Best Klaus -- Klaus Major http://www.major-k.de kl...@major.on-rev.com ___ use-livecode mailing list 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 -- Pierre Sahores mobile : 06 03 95 77 70 www.sahores-conseil.com ___ use-livecode mailing list 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
Re: [OT}] Hypercard and an uneasy read.
Le 2 déc. 2011 à 14:32, Pierre Sahores a écrit : the workflow we need to build to solve the initial defined customer's need. Bonjour Pierre, A little precision : with HC the initial customer and programmer was the same person... I think that will be the same with LC... But is really the case? Or is LC becomes a language like another ? ___ use-livecode mailing list 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
Re: [OT}] Hypercard and an uneasy read.
People who wrote in this thread about why HC was killed are all self centric conspiracy lunatics. Apple was considered dying, bleeding money left and right, and everyone just waited for Jobs to be a megalomaniac idiot and kill the company off ungracefully by what was considered a flawed personality, an outdated idea of what computing is and a bound to fail management style. But of course Jobs did what he does best: Concentrate on a single project (the iMac what became Mac OS X), getting ridiculed for it (only USB? Lickable UI? Not cheap as ad-supported Walmart PC? Jobs is an idiot!), and then making huge profit from the non-corporate customer market. Now this concentration on a single task was of course detrimental to a lot of projects, including fancy and forward looking Xerox-lab styled ideas like HyperCard and the Newton, as well as silly stuff like the gazillion Performa models. No one is making up stories that Jobs killed the Performa branding, because his fruity employees disliked the grey colorisation or some shit like that. All those projects where sucking up money, the only thing Apple didn't have at that time, so they had to die. And yes, some good Products died in those years, but even more bad ones got shafted. This simple and economically sound decision had almost nothing to do with internal strifes, dislikes or philosophic/ideologic what is the future of computing reasons. So a positive account balance saved Apple. After that, Jobs (and in extension Apple) never tried to do world changing research like OpenDoc again, instead focusing on polish over far out features and philosophically approaches to changing the computing landscape. This is most obvious with products like the Mac OS X Finder, who is in many ways a copy of existing concepts, and actively tries to avoid changing the way we use computers. Björnke On 2 Dec 2011, at 05:15, dunb...@aol.com wrote: I had always thought that it was the developers who successfully lobbied against HC. It was feared that sales of shrink wrapped software in general would suffer if a large population of users could roll their own solutions. No need for filemaker or excel. Craig Newman -Original Message- From: Todd Geist t...@geistinteractive.com To: How to use LiveCode use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Sent: Thu, Dec 1, 2011 3:17 pm Subject: Re: [OT}] Hypercard and an uneasy read. Hi Bob, The part that I most liked about the linked article was the emphasis on explorability. I think HyperCard had it. My other Tool FileMaker had it. FileMaker has less of it today. And I think that LiveCode is not as explorable as HyperCard was. In the case of LiveCode it nows support 7 platforms instead of one. This adds a lot of complexity, but I am not sure I would trade that away. I will say this that LiveCode and FileMaker both remain two of the most explorable user interface design tools around. HTML/CSS/Javascript have traditionally sucked in this regard although recently that has changed with the rise of Jquery and other JS libraries. Still I defy anyone who has not done it before to create a simple form with HTML/CSS and JS, I don't care what IDE they use, they won't be able to do it. But give some body a LiveCode Stack or a FileMaker DB and they might be able to pull it off. They can explore their way there. Thats what I love about Explorability. But your other point about a solution not being simpler than the problem it is meant to solve. I understand what you mean. But if that were true then there wouldn't be much advancement in technology. I think that breakthroughs in technology are really about taking a complex problem and making it simpler. The best solutions are the simplest ones. Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction. - Albert Einstein Todd On Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 3:37 PM, Bob Sneidar b...@twft.com wrote: Hi Todd. Let me propose that a solution cannot be simpler than the problem it is meant to solve. People who think so are usually only imagining how simple the solution can be. When they actually get in and try to solve it, they find a world of complexity that was hiding behind their imaginations. Every serious developer finds this to be true eventually. That was my problem when I first started using Livecode. Coming from Hypercard, I thought, Oh I know how to do that! But I had to relearn a lot, and some things I had to learn from scratch, and I am still learning every day! Livecode is to me like a constructor set of pieces of things you can put together to make something, rather than a toolchest full of tools to make something. You can see the advantages and disadvantages of each approach. With a constructor set, parts are already prefabbed, and a system is worked out for how the pieces all fit together. You don't have
Re: [OT}] Hypercard and an uneasy read.
Bonjour Pierre, Am 02.12.2011 um 14:53 schrieb Pierre Sahores: I did't got the bucks to license Oracle Media Objects ;-/ What was this REAL Table object! ;-) you seems to say we can't redesign it in LC ? ;D Well, it was a REAL spreadsheet like in Excel! And one could addres it like that - A3B4! Or something like this, I don't remember correctly anymore And since it was a native object with formattable cells (sic!), we cannot fake erm... rebuild this easily in LiveCode! Kind regards, Pierre Best Klaus -- Klaus Major http://www.major-k.de kl...@major.on-rev.com ___ use-livecode mailing list 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
Re: [OT}] Hypercard and an uneasy read.
Björnke, I think you are right on the money. I had never used Hypercard, but stumbled across Rev 1.1.1 and was staggered to think that this entire programming paradigm had passed me by (I wrote my first BASIC program in 1980). I'm glad that RunRev/Metacard had gone with a cross-platform implementation. I'm only just stepping my toe into mobile development, and I'm pretty sure that if it wasn't for Runrev facilitating that, I would not do it (I've a huge number of other programming/systems issues to deal with). If Apple had not ceased Hypercard development, then Runrev may never have taken off. Jobs focused with incredible vision, and Hypercard was a casualty. In fact, so was WebObjects, which was a product which was much closer to Jobs heart (being the product that sustained NeXT in its last few years before acquisition). There were key trajectories of WebObjects that were only ever started but never finished (e.g. DirectToJavaClient, where an application was developed by specifying rules). WebObjects is not dead but not really living much. The technology is still available to download, but it requires the use of the open-source Eclipse IDE for development, and requires many third-party open source libraries to function decently. The difference between the death of Hypercard and the stasis of WebObjects is about 5 to 10 years. WO was used (and probably is still used) as a fundamental infrastructure within apple.com. Nevertheless, the last retail copy of it was 5.2 (released in 2002). Apple still needed WO to persist, and made great use internally of 3rd party open-source libraries, so Apple continued to make minor updates to WO whilst no longer selling it. If Apple did not use WO themselves, I'm sure it would have simply died 5 years ago. So, Hypercard was not the only Apple innovation to be killed-off. Back in the day, NeXT used to charge $20,000 per server for WO, and I believe it was $5,000 for a developer license. 2011/12/2 Björnke von Gierke b...@mac.com People who wrote in this thread about why HC was killed are all self centric conspiracy lunatics. ... But of course Jobs did what he does best: Concentrate on a single project (the iMac what became Mac OS X), getting ridiculed for it ___ use-livecode mailing list 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
Re: [OT}] Hypercard and an uneasy read.
Yes this is true, but only because someone else dealt with the complexity, solved the problems, and then presented the end user with a machine that did the work or calculations for him. But make no mistake someone had to solve the actual problems or there would have been no machine/calculator/whatever. In fact it's added complexity that causes obsolescence. The simple example is the stone wheel. Great for long distance hauling, very durable, holds a lot of weight. Terrible for speed. Very heavy. As soon as you add the need for speed, you have to re-engineer the wheel. Its true however that once someone engineers a new wheel that is much lighter, still fairly durable, and can go faster, the end user doesn't have to know anything about how he did it. He just goes down to the wheel shop and trades a few horses for a couple wheels. Simple right? :-) Bob On Dec 1, 2011, at 5:15 PM, Todd Geist wrote: But your other point about a solution not being simpler than the problem it is meant to solve. I understand what you mean. But if that were true then there wouldn't be much advancement in technology. I think that breakthroughs in technology are really about taking a complex problem and making it simpler. The best solutions are the simplest ones. ___ use-livecode mailing list 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
Re: [OT}] Hypercard and an uneasy read.
Le 2 déc. 2011 à 14:55, René Micout a écrit : Le 2 déc. 2011 à 14:32, Pierre Sahores a écrit : the workflow we need to build to solve the initial defined customer's need. Bonjour Pierre, Bonsoir René, A little precision : with HC the initial customer and programmer was the same person... I think that will be the same with LC... But is really the case? Probably not... Perhaps that a multileveled LC Media where features could be shown/hidden on demand à la Hypercard 2 (remember its 5 distinct levels of functionalities) would help hobbysts and new comers to makes it learning curve more affordable ? Or is LC becomes a language like another ? Surely not ;D We just need to remind in what the xtalk paradigm adds in creativity and methodology freedom terms to academic programming to get the answer to this. To the end, methodology makes always the main difference and it's perhaps why some very great frameworks (JQuery) or coding habits can greatly help to make JS, PHP and other... lots more productive than they would mostly seems instead. LC is king-sized about productivity and its the less we can do to remember it, time to time ;-) What i mostly loved LC for, about the last two years of works, is the way this XTalk helped me to design new kind of web apps in implementing them in using a Operational semantic programming (Programmation sémantique opérationnelle) way to go, lots ahead before what the theory purpose in academic course about this since 2006 (Ecole Polytechnique, ENS,...). Because LC, we can yet code in using OSP (PSO) to design our applications in an incredible productive way : Operational semantic programming is an innovative methodology that allows us to regain control of the software complexity with a simple unified approach that encompasses both the information system architecture as the technical implementation of the code. It is based on the linking of two simple structures: - The flow algorithm, such as patterns of 2D representation of the complexity of the software process model, where vertices represent functions and edges the messages; - Procedural programming - modular and structured - organizing the call of highly specialized functions, representing each, the first element of the dismemberment of the complexity of the entire code (or a subset of code) used by simple reading of the 2D modeling scheme in the composition of the computer program completed or under development. Better than UML2, Operational semantic programming is probably a unique way to give its music theory to the programming work (art of) ... Even if OSP can applies to any programming language suited to meet its principles (Javascript, PHP, C,...), all languages are not equal against OSP and XTalk are probably the most well suited for this, while Java SE 7 could, perhaps..., be the worst ! Kind regards, ___ use-livecode mailing list 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 -- Pierre Sahores mobile : 06 03 95 77 70 www.sahores-conseil.com ___ use-livecode mailing list 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
Re: [OT}] Hypercard and an uneasy read.
Hmmm... we use a web based grading system that the school is very dissatisfied with. They require a persistent connection with the web server which is sometimes a problem in large network environments where one screwup somewhere in a configuration or a router or switch reset produces a hornet's nest of mad teachers! If your product is available in retail form, please contact me off list. Thanks. Bob On Dec 2, 2011, at 11:31 AM, Ronald Zellner wrote: However, I was very excited when I found Revolution in 1999, and subsequently developed a stand-alone Revolution version of the workbook that used the Filemaker server for storage. Students could work anywhere, submit assignment content, and access grading feedback quite conveniently. The final version used SQL for data storage and access. There was a wide range of factors influencing what approaches to take and what to develop in educational settings. ___ use-livecode mailing list 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
Re: [OT}] Hypercard and an uneasy read.
Geoff- Friday, December 2, 2011, 12:53:28 AM, you wrote: Some people, when confronted with a problem, think I know, I'll use regular expressions. Now they have two problems. g -- -Mark Wieder mwie...@ahsoftware.net ___ use-livecode mailing list 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
Re: [OT}] Hypercard and an uneasy read.
Mark- Friday, December 2, 2011, 1:28:24 PM, you wrote: I worked at Apple in the 1990-1997 time frame, and was involved in the migration of technical documentation from paper over to CD ROM. Cutting edge stuff in those days, believe me, and the delivery vehicle we used was...wait for it...Hypercard! Sounds kind of I don't know about later stuff (I left Apple in 1992) but from the time we released HyperCard we did all our bug reporting with it. -- -Mark Wieder mwie...@ahsoftware.net ___ use-livecode mailing list 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
Re: [OT}] Hypercard and an uneasy read.
Todd- Thursday, December 1, 2011, 5:15:12 PM, you wrote: The part that I most liked about the linked article was the emphasis on explorability. I think HyperCard had it. My other Tool FileMaker had it. FileMaker has less of it today. And I think that LiveCode is not as explorable as HyperCard was. I think much of the explorability is still there, but the out-of-box experience is missing in LC, and always has been through the various RunRev versions. You could open up HyperCard for the first time and play around with the rolodex, the calculator, etc. It was easy to change simple things, add features, learn from mistakes, get your feet wet until you reached that Aha! moment. With LC there's a learning curve of several weeks before you get proficient enough to figure out what this is all about. And up to that point any explorability is just trying things or plugging in suggestions from others without really understanding what's going on. -- -Mark Wieder mwie...@ahsoftware.net ___ use-livecode mailing list 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
Re: [OT}] Hypercard and an uneasy read.
I worked in Apple tech support in the UK, from October 1987 to end of Jan 1992, and when I met HyperCard, which was very young at the time, I told my manager that I thought it was going to be huge. He asked why, and I said, well, it's like programming for the rest of us. He agreed. When I started working in tech support there were drawers full of paper pads, that the others had filled in whenever a support call was handled. I soon wrote a stack that did the same job, and a colleague took that further. Probably saved a few trees between us. Eventually it was changed over to using a proper database application, which wasn't any better than the stack, but might have had some advantage I'm not aware of. In Feb 1992 I moved to Santa Monica, where I programmed about 70 titles using HyperCard for Voyager. So, at least I got fairly good use out of it! On Dec 3, 2011, at 12:08 AM, Mark Wieder wrote: I don't know about later stuff (I left Apple in 1992) but from the time we released HyperCard we did all our bug reporting with it. ___ use-livecode mailing list 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
Re: [OT}] Hypercard and an uneasy read.
Yes, Jobs killed a lot of things that were losing money - but that does not explain why Apple would not open-source Hypercard if it didn't want to support it. It was possible to stop the losses without killing the product, but he chose not to. There had to be a reason for that. I recall calling on Cupertino back in the days before Jobs' return. There was an atmosphere of blissful unrealism about the whole place. They were caught in the mindset that somewhere there was a killer app which would be Mac only, which everyone would buy macs to get. Project after project was Mac only, project after project had the lock-in mindset at heart, the hidden assumption being that once people were hooked on this they would never be able to leave Apple. But of course, these were reasons, like the locked in hardware, why you would leave Apple not why you would stay. At some point you'd see where all this was going and decide to get out before it was too late. The pinnacle of this was e-World. They had still not abandoned the idea of an on-line service a la Compuserve at a time when it was obviously dead. I recall our team saying to them in a bemused way that of course it had to run on Windows, and of course it had to be Internet. When they closed they called us up and said ruefully that we had been right. Market share was a very strange topic during those days, and indeed for some years after. The party line was always that it was (a) of no importance (b) far higher than reported by the consultants. I recall the pinnacle of this being the claim that Apple actually had twice the share reported, because every sale was hardware and OS, so you should simply double the percentages. This was on Roughly Drafted. Apple's worst enemy at that time was its fanatical user base, and its greatest sin was the way it catered to ane encouraged them as the water level rose. I heard a number of different explanations of why they killed HC rather than open source it, the most plausible being that the code was unmaintainable. Don't know. I also seem to recall reading in Sculley's book how excited he was by Hypercard. Or is that a false memory? If its right, he would certainly have discussed it with Jobs, so the claim that on his return he didn't even know what it was must be mistaken. Peter -- View this message in context: http://runtime-revolution.278305.n4.nabble.com/OT-Hypercard-and-an-uneasy-read-tp4130135p4152535.html Sent from the Revolution - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ___ use-livecode mailing list 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
Re: [OT}] Hypercard and an uneasy read.
Excellent read. And entirely plausible. I think his assertion that the various HyperCard clones that are too complex and contain too many mystery knobs is pretty accurate. My first programs were written in HyperCard. It was easy to figure out. I have spent decades now writing software or database programs using PHP groovy FileMaker and MySQL. And I'd have to say that after several years of trying RunRev / LiveCode on and off again I am only now beginning to break through. LiveCode has an awful lot of Mystery Knobs. Todd On Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 11:36 AM, Richmond richmondmathew...@gmail.comwrote: http://www.loper-os.org/?p=568 __**_ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/**mailman/listinfo/use-livecodehttp://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode -- Todd Geist (805) 419-9382 ___ use-livecode mailing list 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
Re: [OT}] Hypercard and an uneasy read.
First, the link to BaseliskII port for Mac OS X does not work. Didn't work before, don't work now. Now about the article. I think I disagree with him on a number of things, but what comes to my mind is the notion that the computer can be a mind amplifier or a train as opposed to a bicycle. I don't see a computer as any of those things, because it implies that a computer can do work, which in the classical sense is moving mass. In my view, a computer is a power tool for managing information, but information can only help you plan how to do work, or schedule a time to do the work, or tell you how much money is owed after you do work. It cannot actually DO work at all. The allegories above give the impression that it helps someone GO somewhere. It seems like I am splitting hairs, but I think it's an important distinction. America has given up a great deal of real production to other countries, in exchange of being in the information business. The dot com collapse should be enough to convince us of where that leads. Also, Steve Jobs did not kill anything. He discontinued it. He didn't kill the community either, because the community kept going for YEARS after you could not get it anymore. I don't think a one of them died when Steve discontinued support for Hypercard. When someone uses words like that I really start to look much more critically at what he is saying. To quote Shakespeare, He protesteth much. People often use strong words when they have a weak argument. What made Hypercard obsolete was time and the lack of certain things that became essential to modern apps or dev environments, like say real color support or database access, not to mention a robust graphics engine like Livecode has. I remember, I had to stop using it to develop apps for work because once they got too big they would begin to eat themselves alive, and I ended up fighting a battle to purge the corruption before the stack became unusable. THAT and things like it is what really killed Hypercard. Also, in response to his statement, Otherwise, sit down and contemplate the fact that what has been built once could probably be built again, Hypercard WAS done again. (And by the by, if it's a fact then probability plays no part.) It was called Supercard, Metacard, and now Livecode. How odd that the author didn't mention any of those alternatives. (And by the by, if it's a fact then probability plays no part.) Finally what really tips the scale for me is his final line, ...and please don’t waste your time commenting here. Sink back into the cube farm hellpit from whence you came. Really? Hey, way to win friends and influence people! So if I disagree with him, I came from a cube farm hellpit (whatever the hell that means)? I've read enough. This guy is so full of himself (and excrement comes to mind as well) that I completely discount everything else he has to say. Prima donnas will blather on. The only thing uneasy about this read is considering the time I wasted doing it. Bob On Dec 1, 2011, at 11:36 AM, Richmond wrote: http://www.loper-os.org/?p=568 ___ use-livecode mailing list 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 ___ use-livecode mailing list 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
Re: [OT}] Hypercard and an uneasy read.
Hi Todd. Let me propose that a solution cannot be simpler than the problem it is meant to solve. People who think so are usually only imagining how simple the solution can be. When they actually get in and try to solve it, they find a world of complexity that was hiding behind their imaginations. Every serious developer finds this to be true eventually. That was my problem when I first started using Livecode. Coming from Hypercard, I thought, Oh I know how to do that! But I had to relearn a lot, and some things I had to learn from scratch, and I am still learning every day! Livecode is to me like a constructor set of pieces of things you can put together to make something, rather than a toolchest full of tools to make something. You can see the advantages and disadvantages of each approach. With a constructor set, parts are already prefabbed, and a system is worked out for how the pieces all fit together. You don't have to go get raw materials to work with, all that has been done for you. You just have to decide what you want to make, and if the parts all exist to be successful. But what you are going to end up with is no where near as elegant as you might have envisioned, nor will it be as functional, especially the more complex your project. But putting something together that is useful and even fairly complex is MUCH FASTER! The toolchest approach means you have to make each part yourself, from the ground up. Perhaps you can adapt to pieces others have built already, (API's, libraries etc) but essentially, everything has to be manufactured all by keeping in mind a very precise plan for how it will all fit and work together. LOT more planning is required, as well as a fairly refined skillset and a level of expertise that much fewer people have. And it is going to take a LOT more time, probably more than any one person really wants to spend, so you will probably have to enlist help for more complex projects, and they will have to be experienced to some degree as well. In the end it comes down to this: There are a huge number of people, that if convinced there is a software constructor set advanced enough and yet simple enough that they could make a customized app they really need for a minimal investment in time, learning and money, they would jump at the opportunity. We need to find those people. Neither the constructor set project, nor the toolchest project is going to build itself. And for my part, I know for a fact that I do not have the time to become proficient with the toolchests of today (Java, C++ Objective C) to ever get to the place where I can even begin to build something approaching useful. So I would rather work with the mystery knobs, because those I can figure out and then it won't be a mystery anymore. But the huge store of black magic behind the door that is Java, C++ and Objective C I will never grasp, and really don't want to. My 2¢ Bob On Dec 1, 2011, at 12:23 PM, Todd Geist wrote: LiveCode has an awful lot of Mystery Knobs. Todd ___ use-livecode mailing list 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
Re: [OT}] Hypercard and an uneasy read.
Bob said: Let me propose that a solution cannot be simpler than the problem it is meant to solve. Yep. The most important part of programming/building/creation in general is defining the problem. Well ok, for me the biggest issue is making it pretty since I have zero design intuition. But that problem doesn't show up until the defining has been successfully completed. What I love about computers and programming is that you (hopefully) only have to solve a given problem ONCE. At least until insert data stream, or requirement here changes. ___ use-livecode mailing list 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
Re: [OT}] Hypercard and an uneasy read.
Totally agree with that. Plus LiveCode isn't a solution to anything, it's a tool to implement a solution. Pete On Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 4:50 PM, Mike Bonner bonnm...@gmail.com wrote: Bob said: Let me propose that a solution cannot be simpler than the problem it is meant to solve. Yep. The most important part of programming/building/creation in general is defining the problem. Well ok, for me the biggest issue is making it pretty since I have zero design intuition. But that problem doesn't show up until the defining has been successfully completed. What I love about computers and programming is that you (hopefully) only have to solve a given problem ONCE. At least until insert data stream, or requirement here changes. ___ use-livecode mailing list 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 -- Pete Molly's Revenge http://www.mollysrevenge.com ___ use-livecode mailing list 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
Re: [OT}] Hypercard and an uneasy read.
On 12/1/11 4:54 PM, Bob Sneidar wrote: What made Hypercard obsolete was time and the lack of certain things that became essential to modern apps or dev environments, like say real color support or database access, not to mention a robust graphics engine like Livecode has. Steve Jobs killed it. The HC team was in the middle of writing version 3.0 which would have brought it up to date with modern apps of the day. It was QuickTime based, which gave it color and the graphics engine you mention. Other additions were planned. When the community heard it was to be discontinued, we mounted a protest. Steve Jobs had no idea what HC was or why we were concerned (Phil Schiller thought it was only good for making rolodexes,) and after receiving a bombardment of emails and faxes, Steve asked Kevin Calhoun for a demo so he could see what HC was. He was completely unfamiliar with it. KC called me afterward to talk about it. Steve didn't understand what HC was good for and went ahead with his plan. He disbanded the HC team and most of its engineers left the company. I've heard there were other reasons as well, but none of them had to do with the program itself. LiveCode has grown to be much more capable, as it turns out. I'm glad we ended up here. -- Jacqueline Landman Gay | jac...@hyperactivesw.com HyperActive Software | http://www.hyperactivesw.com ___ use-livecode mailing list 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
Re: [OT}] Hypercard and an uneasy read.
Hi Bob, The part that I most liked about the linked article was the emphasis on explorability. I think HyperCard had it. My other Tool FileMaker had it. FileMaker has less of it today. And I think that LiveCode is not as explorable as HyperCard was. In the case of LiveCode it nows support 7 platforms instead of one. This adds a lot of complexity, but I am not sure I would trade that away. I will say this that LiveCode and FileMaker both remain two of the most explorable user interface design tools around. HTML/CSS/Javascript have traditionally sucked in this regard although recently that has changed with the rise of Jquery and other JS libraries. Still I defy anyone who has not done it before to create a simple form with HTML/CSS and JS, I don't care what IDE they use, they won't be able to do it. But give some body a LiveCode Stack or a FileMaker DB and they might be able to pull it off. They can explore their way there. Thats what I love about Explorability. But your other point about a solution not being simpler than the problem it is meant to solve. I understand what you mean. But if that were true then there wouldn't be much advancement in technology. I think that breakthroughs in technology are really about taking a complex problem and making it simpler. The best solutions are the simplest ones. Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction. - Albert Einstein Todd On Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 3:37 PM, Bob Sneidar b...@twft.com wrote: Hi Todd. Let me propose that a solution cannot be simpler than the problem it is meant to solve. People who think so are usually only imagining how simple the solution can be. When they actually get in and try to solve it, they find a world of complexity that was hiding behind their imaginations. Every serious developer finds this to be true eventually. That was my problem when I first started using Livecode. Coming from Hypercard, I thought, Oh I know how to do that! But I had to relearn a lot, and some things I had to learn from scratch, and I am still learning every day! Livecode is to me like a constructor set of pieces of things you can put together to make something, rather than a toolchest full of tools to make something. You can see the advantages and disadvantages of each approach. With a constructor set, parts are already prefabbed, and a system is worked out for how the pieces all fit together. You don't have to go get raw materials to work with, all that has been done for you. You just have to decide what you want to make, and if the parts all exist to be successful. But what you are going to end up with is no where near as elegant as you might have envisioned, nor will it be as functional, especially the more complex your project. But putting something together that is useful and even fairly complex is MUCH FASTER! The toolchest approach means you have to make each part yourself, from the ground up. Perhaps you can adapt to pieces others have built already, (API's, libraries etc) but essentially, everything has to be manufactured all by keeping in mind a very precise plan for how it will all fit and work together. LOT more planning is required, as well as a fairly refined skillset and a level of expertise that much fewer people have. And it is going to take a LOT more time, probably more than any one person really wants to spend, so you will probably have to enlist help for more complex projects, and they will have to be experienced to some degree as well. In the end it comes down to this: There are a huge number of people, that if convinced there is a software constructor set advanced enough and yet simple enough that they could make a customized app they really need for a minimal investment in time, learning and money, they would jump at the opportunity. We need to find those people. Neither the constructor set project, nor the toolchest project is going to build itself. And for my part, I know for a fact that I do not have the time to become proficient with the toolchests of today (Java, C++ Objective C) to ever get to the place where I can even begin to build something approaching useful. So I would rather work with the mystery knobs, because those I can figure out and then it won't be a mystery anymore. But the huge store of black magic behind the door that is Java, C++ and Objective C I will never grasp, and really don't want to. My 2¢ Bob On Dec 1, 2011, at 12:23 PM, Todd Geist wrote: LiveCode has an awful lot of Mystery Knobs. Todd ___ use-livecode mailing list 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 -- Todd Geist (805) 419-9382 ___ use-livecode
Re: [OT}] Hypercard and an uneasy read.
That's for sure. One other missing feature in Hypercard that was not mentioned is cross-platform support, which LC does very well. (Thank Heavens!) On Dec 1, 2011, at 7:02 PM, J. Landman Gay wrote: LiveCode has grown to be much more capable, as it turns out. I'm glad we ended up here. ___ use-livecode mailing list 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
Re: [OT}] Hypercard and an uneasy read.
I had always thought that it was the developers who successfully lobbied against HC. It was feared that sales of shrink wrapped software in general would suffer if a large population of users could roll their own solutions. No need for filemaker or excel. Craig Newman -Original Message- From: Todd Geist t...@geistinteractive.com To: How to use LiveCode use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Sent: Thu, Dec 1, 2011 3:17 pm Subject: Re: [OT}] Hypercard and an uneasy read. Hi Bob, The part that I most liked about the linked article was the emphasis on explorability. I think HyperCard had it. My other Tool FileMaker had it. FileMaker has less of it today. And I think that LiveCode is not as explorable as HyperCard was. In the case of LiveCode it nows support 7 platforms instead of one. This adds a lot of complexity, but I am not sure I would trade that away. I will say this that LiveCode and FileMaker both remain two of the most explorable user interface design tools around. HTML/CSS/Javascript have traditionally sucked in this regard although recently that has changed with the rise of Jquery and other JS libraries. Still I defy anyone who has not done it before to create a simple form with HTML/CSS and JS, I don't care what IDE they use, they won't be able to do it. But give some body a LiveCode Stack or a FileMaker DB and they might be able to pull it off. They can explore their way there. Thats what I love about Explorability. But your other point about a solution not being simpler than the problem it is meant to solve. I understand what you mean. But if that were true then there wouldn't be much advancement in technology. I think that breakthroughs in technology are really about taking a complex problem and making it simpler. The best solutions are the simplest ones. Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction. - Albert Einstein Todd On Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 3:37 PM, Bob Sneidar b...@twft.com wrote: Hi Todd. Let me propose that a solution cannot be simpler than the problem it is meant to solve. People who think so are usually only imagining how simple the solution can be. When they actually get in and try to solve it, they find a world of complexity that was hiding behind their imaginations. Every serious developer finds this to be true eventually. That was my problem when I first started using Livecode. Coming from Hypercard, I thought, Oh I know how to do that! But I had to relearn a lot, and some things I had to learn from scratch, and I am still learning every day! Livecode is to me like a constructor set of pieces of things you can put together to make something, rather than a toolchest full of tools to make something. You can see the advantages and disadvantages of each approach. With a constructor set, parts are already prefabbed, and a system is worked out for how the pieces all fit together. You don't have to go get raw materials to work with, all that has been done for you. You just have to decide what you want to make, and if the parts all exist to be successful. But what you are going to end up with is no where near as elegant as you might have envisioned, nor will it be as functional, especially the more complex your project. But putting something together that is useful and even fairly complex is MUCH FASTER! The toolchest approach means you have to make each part yourself, from the ground up. Perhaps you can adapt to pieces others have built already, (API's, libraries etc) but essentially, everything has to be manufactured all by keeping in mind a very precise plan for how it will all fit and work together. LOT more planning is required, as well as a fairly refined skillset and a level of expertise that much fewer people have. And it is going to take a LOT more time, probably more than any one person really wants to spend, so you will probably have to enlist help for more complex projects, and they will have to be experienced to some degree as well. In the end it comes down to this: There are a huge number of people, that if convinced there is a software constructor set advanced enough and yet simple enough that they could make a customized app they really need for a minimal investment in time, learning and money, they would jump at the opportunity. We need to find those people. Neither the constructor set project, nor the toolchest project is going to build itself. And for my part, I know for a fact that I do not have the time to become proficient with the toolchests of today (Java, C++ Objective C) to ever get to the place where I can even begin to build something approaching useful. So I would rather work with the mystery knobs, because those I can figure out and then it won't be a mystery anymore. But the huge store of black magic behind the door that is Java, C++ and Objective C I will never grasp, and really
