LiveCode Forums

Do not read me wrongly: I am NOT attempting to "trash" SuperCard.

What I am doing is trying to see where LiveCode is doing well,
and where it isn't; in both cases ONLY from the point of view of
new, young learners, with special reference as to how quickly
they can become self-propelled.

I am, possibly, examining 2 things which could be mutually contradictory:

1. Claims like this:

2. Environments that allow text-based programming, not just drag-N-drop of multi-media elements.

If you want, you can see this as a sort of extension to my Masters degree stuff on Agent-led interfaces for software creation - in fact a read through of the first section of that would clarify things a lot:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/aknlqyovmke61 ... f.zip?dl=0

SuperCard tool palette:

The initial focus is on objects which can be dragged onto the work surface.

HyperNext tool palette:

A similar emphasis on objects which can be dragged onto the work surface.

HyperStudio tools palette:
No objects to be seen.

HyperStudio handles objects in a different way,
offering them in a toolbar along the top of a stack window:
I have removed the centre of the start card image as I am not focussing on that just now.

Klaus wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 25, 2018 4:58 pm

I also LOVED SuperEdit and I really never used the "Runtime Editor" in my (few) SC years!

You and I are like twin sons of different mothers.

Given SuperEdit for layout, I loved that SuperCard's Runtime Editor had three modes: full, palette, and menu. Being exclusively Mac, where there's only one menu bar, I switched to menu as soon as I discovered that option, leaving most of the menu bar for my own app's menus while still providing access to the RTE things I needed.

leaving most of the menu bar for my own app's menus

Of course your comments are made from the position of a well-established and
highly competent xTalk programmer and not from someone like 9 year old Ivan
just starting out in the world.

Having said that (had my 'squish'), I have often wondered about a dockable
tool bar where, apart from one or two bog-basic things, the end-user can add
or remove whatever tools s/he wants.

The LiveCode 9 toolbar is vaguely dockable in the widget section.

richmond62 wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 25, 2018 7:00 pm

leaving most of the menu bar for my own app's menus

Of course your comments are made from the position of a well-established and
highly competent xTalk programmer and not from someone like 9 year old Ivan
just starting out in the world.

True, usability and learnability are not always compatible goals. Reconciling their inherent differences is the Holy Grail of software design.

You definitely brought up some memories with HyperNext, which if I remember it rightly was based on RB's scripting language. I played with it briefly back when I was using RB full time and they started swinging their IDE all over the place and changing the language.

I may have to dl the current version and see if it has made any real progress since that point.

So: onto buttons and other objects in HyperStudio:

Choosing a button object from the top tool bar one meets an agent
that offers us a choice of button type:
Which is pretty cool (especially if you are a 9 year old), until the teacher points out that there is no information about what those different buttons can actually do.

Then one is presented with a series of pre-determined actions the button can perform, which is also cool until you realise that that's as far as it goes: no apparent access to scripting at all.

No-one is going to learn programming with HyperStudio.

AND, additionally, HyperStudio costs money ( $30 US) and is
confined to Macintosh and Windows only. If one wants a "Noddy" play kit of the type
that HyperStudio offers one can run one up in comparatively
short order in a Community version of LiveCode.

richmond62 wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 25, 2018 7:36 pm

No-one is going to learn programming with HyperStudio.

What do you think of Scratch?

You definitely brought up some memories with HyperNext

I had a correspondence with Malkolm [sic], the developer of HyperNext a few years ago when he was threatening to produce a Linux version; however he abandoned that idea, which seems a pity; although how he finances himself is anybody's guess.

I think that Scratch belongs to a different universe to SuperCard, LiveCode, HyperNext and so on.

I have tried it with children and quickly reverted to Turtle Graphics insofar as I felt that with Turtle Graphics I could teach the same principles without the children being distracted away from learning programming by the LEGO brick world of Scratch :

LEGO is a fantastic tool (I have a plastic dustbin of the stuff and often play with it to unwind after a stressful week), but it it still a system of pre-made forms. What LEGO is not is piles of raw materials, a cement mixer, an iron foundry and so on.

This would seem to be the main difference between Scratch (and I mean "pure Scratch , not the hybrid versions that attempt to seduce children from Scratch to Python) and environments like LiveCode.

richmond62 wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 25, 2018 7:41 pm

You definitely brought up some memories with HyperNext

I had a correspondence with Malkolm [sic], the developer of HyperNext a few years ago when he was threatening to produce a Linux version; however he abandoned that idea, which seems a pity; although how he finances himself is anybody's guess.

Yah, I can see from his page that he never got much farther with it in all the years since I last looked at it, which is kind of a pity. I'll install his last efforts in it and take a look at it again, thank you again for bringing it up, fond memories of a simpler time for me

richmond62 wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 25, 2018 7:47 pm

I think that Scratch belongs to a different universe to SuperCard, LiveCode, HyperNext and so on.

I have tried it with children and quickly reverted to Turtle Graphics insofar as I felt that with Turtle Graphics...

Have you used Jim Hurley's Turtle Graphics for LiveCode?

Poking around in SuperEdit I found a scriptEditor (which the kids did not!):
after a bit of fiddling around I managed to get the script readable:

although there did not seem to be any option for colour-coding such as the LiveCode scriptEditor offers.

I'll install his last efforts in it and take a look at it again

I know that the HyperNext chap is a "one-man band"
and that has to be admired: but this made me feel a bit wobbly: