dlw@Atherton.COM (David Williams) (09/22/90)
Hmmm, lets try and see whats going on here.
1) As quoted in Danny Goodman's Book Bill Atkinson said that if Apple EVER
stopped shipping HyperCard for free he could do so himself.
a) Did this cover all versions of HyperCard say 2.x and beyond?
b) By shipping HyperCard 2.0 with scripting hidden does Apple keep to the
spirit of whatever agreement was made with Mr. A?
2) Sounds like we get HC 2.0 with full execution functionality but with
scripting hidden. Analogy, this sounds like shipping MacWrite II, but
with only a teachtext interface as default [you can read files, you
can print files you just can't EDIT files(yeah I know you can
enter data into HC stacks). Sounds like Apple is backing off of
Programming for the rest of us, in the sense that it was just so DARN
easy in HC.
3) Course this could be implemented by Claris in many ways:
a) You give them money and they give you a serial number to unlock the
mysteries of HC scripting. Ah...bogus copy protection just like UNIX!
b) You give them money and they give you a slick manual that says
"hit propeller shift elbow to enable scripting."
c) Its just another programming product like THINK C, MPW et al--only
its the HyperTalk you know and LOVE. Comes with 500 pages of
docs in simulated leatherette bound manuals.
d) How to activate scripting is made generally public...but Claris
adds value by doing fantastic manuals and support for more
features in a timely manner and you get official technical
support (An Apple First)!
One can of course hope for 3D...after all getting new features like full
color support, appleEvents, et al could be financed somehow(other than
those nice cheap prices for Apple Hardware).
Perhaps this will all be explained in the Help stacks shipped with HC 2.0.
All in all, from reading the press release and the announcement in the
San Jose Mercury News--I would say whoever wrote the release really
bungled the job. It
leaves one with a very bad feeling regarding the future "openness" and
customize it yurself feel that HC has had. One can only shudder at how
this must have been reported in the Wall Street journal. Ah well, guess
we'll all have to get the real story in next weeks MacWeek eh?
-David Williams
"Unless of course, Help stacks are to be SOLD by Claris!" wilkins@jarthur.Claremont.EDU (Mark Wilkins) (09/22/90)
In article <30754@athertn.Atherton.COM> dlw@Atherton.COM (David Williams) writes: > d) How to activate scripting is made generally public...but Claris >adds value by doing fantastic manuals and support for more features in a >timely manner and you get official technical support (An Apple First)! This is probably the closest of the things you mentioned. I called up Apple's Developer Hotline and after some futzing about they came back to me and explained that while the details weren't entirely clear to them the following was true. There will, as Chuq has already said, be ONE HyperCard. The version shipped with the Mac will probably not have all the help facilities, or all the example stacks. It MAY (and this is a personal inference from my copy of 2.0 final which just came in the mail) have a different Home stack which provides no easy way to get into scripting mode. However, Cmd-M "set userlevel to 5" will almost certainly work and there probably will be an easier way. Also, the Claris product will include some new developer tools which haven't been part of earlier HyperCard packages. Now, I just got a copy of the "golden master" HyperCard package from Apple, in the mail. It isn't clear to me whether this package was equivalent to the Claris HyperCard package or the bundled one. However, it had a fair amount of stuff meant for the infrequent user and a fair amount of stuff meant for casual developers. Some of the development resources seemed better than anything 1.2.x ever came with. The long and the short seems to be this. HyperCard 2.0 the binary executable comes in one variety. The various support stacks come in two varieties, one bundled and one sold for $50 to $100. All you need is the "Script Language Guide" or a Winkler or Goodman book, and the one which comes with your Mac will be all you need. However, some of the things in the Claris package will be good enough that you will WANT them. -- Mark Wilkins wilkins@jarthur.claremont.edu
chuq@Apple.COM (The Wandering Phew) (09/23/90)
dlw@Atherton.COM (David Williams) writes: >1) As quoted in Danny Goodman's Book Bill Atkinson said that if Apple EVER > stopped shipping HyperCard for free he could do so himself. > a) Did this cover all versions of HyperCard say 2.x and beyond? > b) By shipping HyperCard 2.0 with scripting hidden does Apple keep to the > spirit of whatever agreement was made with Mr. A? I would say b). I have no idea about a) >2) Sounds like we get HC 2.0 with full execution functionality but with > scripting hidden. Analogy, this sounds like shipping MacWrite II, but > with only a teachtext interface as default No, I think a better analogy is microsoft word, which comes with "short menus" as the default. When you want more power, you simply turn on the full menus option. >3) Course this could be implemented by Claris in many ways: How about e) it's just turned off until you decide to turn it on. -- Chuq Von Rospach <+> chuq@apple.com <+> [This is myself speaking] mumble..mumble...mumble...mumbleLemieuxSCORE!!!!!!!...mumble...mumble..mumble
joseph@cooper.cooper.EDU (Joe Giannuzzi) (09/25/90)
in article <45057@apple.Apple.COM>, chuq@Apple.COM (The Wandering Phew) says: > >>2) Sounds like we get HC 2.0 with full execution functionality but with >> scripting hidden. Analogy, this sounds like shipping MacWrite II, but >> with only a teachtext interface as default > > No, I think a better analogy is microsoft word, which comes with "short > menus" as the default. When you want more power, you simply turn on the full > menus option. This may be true, but you don't have to pay Microsoft in order to turn the full menus on. That's the whole point. Everyone seems to think that a fee will be required to do authoring based on one Apple press statement. We could argue for days (and we have :) whether this is true or not, but until more info becomes officially available (instead of idle speculation), we won't know for sure exactly what the situation is (meaning is there a fee, and if so, what is it for?) BTW, our news machine here has been dumping articles like crazy lately, so the whole situation might be resolved and I just don't know about it yet. If so, I apologize for my humble ramblings. Joseph -> joseph@cooper.cooper.edu OR cmcl2!cooper!joseph Disclaimer -> Reality is just a figment of your imagination.
fozzard@alumni.colorado.edu (Richard Fozzard) (09/25/90)
In article <45057@apple.Apple.COM> chuq@Apple.COM (The Wandering Phew) writes: >dlw@Atherton.COM (David Williams) writes: > >>1) As quoted in Danny Goodman's Book Bill Atkinson said that if Apple EVER >> stopped shipping HyperCard for free he could do so himself. >> a) Did this cover all versions of HyperCard say 2.x and beyond? >> b) By shipping HyperCard 2.0 with scripting hidden does Apple keep to the >> spirit of whatever agreement was made with Mr. A? > >I would say b). I have no idea about a) > Just a linguistic curiousity: A casual reader might be confused by Chuq's answer; "b)" is not an answer to a multiple choice question, but is itself a question. So is Chuq just restating a question when he says "I would say b)"? Of course, all you hypertalk programmers out there recognized this immediately as being of the form "I would say <true expression>". Just a cute difference between the casual reader and the programmer mentality in linguistic expression! Since I am both, I could hardly resist the comparison. -- ======================================================================== Richard Fozzard "Serendipity empowers" Univ of Colorado/CIRES/NOAA R/E/FS 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80303 fozzard@boulder.colorado.edu (303)497-6011 or 444-3168