ldo@waikato.ac.nz (Lawrence D'Oliveiro, Waikato University) (11/09/90)
One interesting point I noticed in both the original and current editions of Goodman's book: he seems to believe that the only way to determine the value of a property is using "get". E g Get the number of card buttons Put it into WhereIWantIt instead of Put the number of card buttons into WhereIWantIt Looking at the HyperTalk 2.0 book by Winkler and Kamins, I think I know the reason why: it's explained there that, early in the development of HyperTalk, there was only one variable, and that was "it" (and it was global then). "Get" was, of course, the way to put a new value into "it", so it was indeed the only way to get at the values of properties. W & K point out that, now that you can have any number of variables, "get" is far from necessary. Lawrence D'Oliveiro fone: +64-71-562-889 Computer Services Dept fax: +64-71-384-066 University of Waikato electric mail: ldo@waikato.ac.nz Hamilton, New Zealand 37^ 47' 26" S, 175^ 19' 7" E, GMT+13:00 To someone with a hammer and a screwdriver, every problem looks like a nail with threads.