I have just downloaded something called 'BayCard',
http://bayhoff.wordpress.com/
a Mac-only sort-of-Hypercard-thingy, and read this in the Help section:
"Simply put, BayCard is a modern-day HyperCard clone. It was designed to
allow non-programmers to bring their own visions to life without the
need to learn how to write code. Like HyperCard, a BayCard document can
be thought of as a stack of index cards. As a result, BayCard documents
are usually referred to as stacks. Each stack contains a background that
appears below all cards.
Unlike HyperCard, BayCard does not feature a scripting language. In
place of a scripting language, BayCard features over 25 powerful
interface widgets including, but not limited to, tables, lists, web
pages, date pickers, and iTunes-style star ratings. All widgets are 100
percent real and, as such, your BayCard creations will look and feel
just like any other aspect of the Mac experience."
And found myself thinking a number of things:
1. This is a toy.
However, if I am only needing a toy why would I bother with
Livecode rather than this thing?
1.1. Well, Baycard, unlike LEGO, is not very flexible [and that
reminds me of my father drilling holes in LEGO blocks and
attaching small battery driven motors in 1970] and could
cramp one's style quite a lot.
1.2. What does "All widgets are 100 percent real" mean? Is there
such a thing as a fake widget? certainly begs the question.
1.3. Children play with toys, and the clever ones, sooner or
later, want to do clever things with those toys, and if they cannot
they throw those toys away and find better things.
2. "does not feature a scripting language." Yum; don't have to stretch
my brain much.
2.1. Well; morons in, morons out. While this may be all very jolly
for the "Power Point is the /sine qua non/ of everything on computers"
it is not very jolly in quite a number of other respects.
2.2. Without a scripting language one is severely restricted; i.e.
only to the things that the folks who designed Baycard think I will
do with their thing:
2.3. Bet Kevin Miller did NOT imagine Richmond Mathewson making a
fancy Sanskrit digitisation system with his product: BUT,
because Kevin Miller had the foresight to see that people
might want to do things other than what he might want to do he made sure
that
Livecode could be leveraged for a vast range of things.
The scripting language is a very large part of that.
3. Can I replicate the sort of 'grab-shunt-and-drop' stuff I make for
low-level EFL kids to practise stuff such as positions?
3.1. Not really. For starters it seems that a 'button' is always
a button, and an 'image' is always an image; which is not very good.
4. Why am I writing advertising copy for Runtime Revolution Livecode?
This sort of comparison should be pointed out on the Livecode website
and in their other propaganda.
Richmond.
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