CompileIt! lovers and haters...
YESTERDAY
I would have to agree with Rob, here. I used CompileIt! to the point
where I made a small C app that RAN externals only and I would get
CompileIt! to compile into that app (called HyperApp). I then wrote a
front end (in CompileIt!) to write and manage my code in. I've moved a
great deal of my code management features from it into Constellation
(www.daniels-mara.com/products).
The CompileIt! Xternal performance (if there weren't too many text call
backs) was breath-taking. Tom Pittman created a great tool there. The
early versions were slow to compile and frustrating, but the the last
versions were killer and had a very good debugger.
Tom Pittman DID write CompileIt! in 68000 assembler using HyperTalk to
do that! He was a purist indeed. I learned a tremendous amount about
everyday coding using pointers, handles, bitwise math and bunches of
goodies--all in my fav lingua, HyperTalk. As a tool, today it would be
tremendously helpful.
TODAY
Doing CompileIt! today would be challenging in a multiplatform
environs, because one of the great parts of CompileIt was its toolbox
access. HOWEVER, HyperCard had its own toolbox, too. PERHAPS Rev has
such a thing that we could call from externals and shield us from the
individual API's for the varous platform. These HyperCard callbacks
were binary callbacks with data-typed params, so they were every bit as
fast as C or a OS toolbox call.
WIth Revolution binary callbacks from XCMDs the task of creating a
compiler and debugger might be a bit more manageable and certainly
would be a fun project.
TOMORROW
Enough history and what-if's!
BOTTOM LINE: I'm interested. My company (Daniels & Mara, creators of
Constellation) would be interested in discussing a commercial venture.
Not sure I'm all that interested in an open-source, design-by-committee
free-for-all, I'd, of course, prefer a real project with direction and
technical/financial purpose. There are several large hurdles in the
process.
Let's keep this discussion going.
Best,
Jerry
On Jun 23, 2005, at 9:00 AM, Rob Cozens wrote:
Richard, et al:
So instead CompileIt! had its own unique syntax and hundreds of
symbols one could use to implement things that were algorithmically
very much like one would do in Pascal or C. Of course this required a
whole other level of knowledge, and for those symbols related to the
Mac Toolbox it also required the dozen-volume set of Inside Mac
books, and/or the more efficient Think Library (which came with Think
C)
Are you talking about the same CompileIt! (Rev 2.6.1) I used for
years? There was very little difference between HyperTalk and
CompileIt! syntax, except for things HyperTalk didn't support:
variable typing, record structures, system call "glue".
My experience is that it is easily an order of magnitude more
efficient to write externals in CompileIt! than C or Pascal--and I
have professional experience programming in both other languages. If
you are programming Mac Toolbox calls, you _will_ have to consult
Inside Macintosh regardless of of the language you use. But one
doesn't have to consult a dozen volumes unless one is implementing
_all_ Toolbox calls. If I want to tap into Mac Program-to-Program
Communications, for example, I need one volume: Interprocess
Communication.
Finally, CompileIt! does not have hundreds of symbols to complete its
function...it includes hundreds of symbols that are _already_ defined
in Inside Macintosh. If you're programming in another language, you
will have to define the same symbols in an include file.
I'm really sorry your experience with CompileIt! was such that you
didn't get it.
Rob Cozens, Staff Conservator
Mendonoma Marine Life Conservancy
"Every so often something strange happens on a stretch of Gulf coast
shoreline. Fish, crabs, and shrimp all but throw themselves into the
arms, baskets, and hand nets of people wading in the beach surf... In
a few hours a single person can collect a hundred pounds of shrimp...
Gulf folks call it a ''jubilee.'' The reality, at least for the sea's
creatures, is less jubilant. They aren't presenting themselves as
gifts to man but trying desperately to escape suffocation."
-- Ocean's End
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