On Aug 13, 2009, at 7:18 AM, [email protected] wrote:
There was a short thread just a little while ago where it was
mentioned
that the name of the language itself was important. That is, in
order to be
taken seriously, to compete with C++ or Fortran, in other words to
break away
from the hobby-like persona of Hypertalk, the name of the language
had to
convey power.
Had to, since it did not appear arcane in structure and syntax, at
least be
named like it was raw machine code.
Forget substance.
HT was saddled with "scripting" instead of "programming" (note my
use of
quoted literals) to make it seem less daunting. On purpose,
imagine. This
greatly contributed to its relegation to being kids stuff.
"Hypertalk" already
sounded like a skateboard. It was the "Hyper", I guess.
Forget substance. (note the verbosity). Mention fun or elegance at
your
peril; it will not be taken seriously.
Human beings (in my opinion the worst sort of people) probably need
the
language to have a power name. Sort of like a power suit. I spent an
evening
playing Rev with a "real" programmer who never heard of it. He loved
it,
asking me about inheritance and polymorphism. We wrote gadgets ALL
night, playing
especially with expression evaluation, which blew him away. He learned
fast. Really fast. One convert.
I vote for Transcript. It already exists and is no more homey than
Java. It
is a strong, no-nonsense name.
You all saw Kevin's post. It's a done deal: revTalk.
Craig, here's why I think your (and others') concerns are probably
outdated:
Scripting: Maybe it was a dirty word in the '80s and '90s. But that
was then. Today we have JavaScript and ActionScript. Even "real"
programmers take them seriously. So "scripting" doesn't carry the
negative connotation it used to.
HyperCard and HyperTalk are ancient history. The new generation of
programmers might have heard the names, but probably know next to
nothing about them. People will judge Revolution on its merits when
they see what it can do. And they'll project their impression onto the
scripting language, whatever it's named. Do you think your programmer
friend will think Rev is less cool when he hears revTalk?
That said, the switch from Transcript to Revolution barely caused a
blip on the radar screen. I don't think this change for the scripting
language will either.
My $.02.
Best regards,
Devin
Devin Asay
Humanities Technology and Research Support Center
Brigham Young University
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