Probably Richard, Jacque or Ken will jump in here and correct me if I'm wrong. But, as I recall, the primary reason for writing MetaCard as a total RAM based product was it made it lightning fast. And to this day, it is still a very fast programming environment. In many ways, significantly faster than HyperCard.
Remember, the first platforms MetaCard ran on were UNIX based, which had virtual memory, so there wasn't a big problem regarding having too little memory. Also, having RAM based stacks virtually eliminated the dreaded stack corruption so prevalent in HC and SC. How many times did any of us lose data to that particular problem! While Bill Atkinson certainly was a very talented programmer, and HyperCard at that time probably demanded a disk-based and Assembly programmed effort, it was probably not the best choice for programming languages concerning serviceability. SuperCard, which came later, was based on a bit easier to maintain language, and while not quite as fast as HC, was very respectable in terms of performance. I have as much respect...if not more, for Scott Raney's efforts taking the best parts of HC, speeding them up significantly and architecting a solution for multiple platforms. You only need be around during the MC days to recall what a perfectionist and stickler for details (esp bugs) he was. His journey and product has lasted much longer than HC's, partly because of architecture, partly because of business savvy, and mostly because it solved problems in ways no other software did. Also, let's not forget, before the Mac there was Xerox PARC, and their own 'lamer' version of MacPaint. Before HyperTalk, there was SmallTalk. I only mention this because in some way or another, all software is derivative. Don't get me wrong. Andy and Bill were two of the brightest lights ever to program. On 5/29/07, Scott Kane <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I'd be curious to know why RR decided to change the behaviour of how stacks are read (from file as opposed to loaded fully into RAM). I suspect it would be possible to work around this, I believe Rob Cozens does something of the sought with Serendipity, but the question is whether it's really worth while given it's all there already with a "real" database.
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