A quick compliment for the livecode team

[bbalmerTotalFluency]

I know you receive compliments quite often especially about the language itself - but hey! It's never bad to be reminded of something good.

I just want to say what a delight this language is. It's a very mature environment and that shows up every day.

I was just trying to scroll to a specific line in a field. It could not be much easier and the code is crystal clear of course when one reads it back.

"Thanks" for the many hours of frustration that I DON'T experience.

[stam]

Yes, agreed!!

Also not forgetting the original developers of HyperCard, who broke ground with the very concept of xTalk…

[richmond62]

Agreed!!!

Not forgetting the 'forgotten' MetaCard that came 'in between'.

[Klaus]

Yes, Metacard got me hooked on X-talk!
I had HyperCard installed on my first Mac Lc in 1993, but did not yet "get" it at that time.

[FourthWorld]

For the sake of completeness, a tip of the hat across the fullness of time: gratitude for LC carrying the xTalk torch into the 21st century, and to Bill Appleton's World Builder, the first scriptable multimedia authoring tool for Mac, released in 1986.

Appleton later went on to make Course Builder, a NoCode authoring system focused on education.

Later still, wanting to break free from the limitations of NoCode authoring, Appleton released SuperCard in 1989.

That was the first xTalk vendor I worked with, having written parts of the SuperCard IDE and a third of their Language Guide. SuperCard did so well I was able to quit my day job to start Fourth World, offering SuperCard add-ons and custom development.

At the LC YouTube channel you'll see a portrayal of a young Kevin Miller learning to code on his Mac. Appleton's SuperCard was his roots too.

[dunbarx]

I started with HC in 1987, and when Supercard came out, I saw it had advanced the xTalk paradigm rather a lot.

But I stuck with good ol' HC because I was incensed that Bill Appleton co-opted Bill Atkinson's name. That sort of copycat behavior just did not sit well with me.

And we must not forget that it was Dan Winkler who pushed hard to develop and promote HyperTalk, which Atkinson thought would never get real traction.

Craig

[FourthWorld]

The product name? That was the pattern at the time. Apple bundled useful tools, but in those days intentionally stopped short of making truly feature-rich apps, leaving the market open for third parties. It was a new platform and Apple made their money on hardware, so they worked hard to bring in the third party support a platform needs to hit critical mass

By the time SuperCard premiered, the publisher, Silicon Beach Software, had already published the popular award-winning SuperPaint, which innovatively combined the best of Apple's MacPaint and MaxDeaw with a wide range of new features beyond what those had.

So when Appleton approached SBS, the name SuperCard fit easily into the existing lineup.

Apple was quite pleased with SC, validating the groundwork they'd laid with HC but taking it in new directions beyond their own product's scope.

I have in my archives an old issue of MacWeek magazine with a joint announcement from Apple's Jean-Louis Gassee and Silicon Beach's Charlie Jackson about the formation of a HyperTalk Standard, to encourage even more players to enter the space in ways that maximized interoperability.

That initiative was never brought to fruition as Apple moved on to focus on other initiatives. But I appreciate that the companies came together to discuss the possibility.

[richmond62]

Richard,

Quite apart from the interesting history in your posting, the bit of a sentence which really resonated with me was

encourage even more players to enter the space in ways that maximized interoperability

over the years Apple, Microsoft, and the various Linux bodies have moved from territories with sharply defined, almost impenetrable boundaries to a fairly high level on interoperability.

[FourthWorld]

Vendor lock-in is desirable to shareholders, but not to customers, particularly enterprise.

AppleTalk was dropped in favor of TCP long ago. AOL, CompuServe, GENIE, eWorld...all gave way to the open web.

Even today's social media is diversifying, with the closest thing to an emerging common ground being interoperability via ActivityPub.

Ours is a social species. In due time sharing almost always wins out over hoarding.