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Hypercard – Way Too Early

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Re: Hypercard – Way Too Early

#51

Post by flomo »

doctorwho wrote: post #47
flomo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The thing that steamrollered HyperCard was Visual BASIC True from a market standpoint, I recall one of the Mac magazines had an article about jerry-rigging a database front-end in HyperCard, and it was clear it was no VB. However, more similar in spirit to HyperCard was Lotus Notes, with its networked hypertext document databases where data storage was largely abstracted away. That was a proprietary web before ther…

Lotus Notes was an awful way to do anything. It allowed people with little to no programming skill to destroy the IT capabilities of small business and non-profits. If that had been backed by anyone except Lotus it would have died on the drawing board (as it should have).

That was the entire appeal of Notes/Hypercard, people could throw together a small database application and it wasn't any more difficult than creating a spreadsheet. (The big difference was that Notes apps were automatically network client-server.) I think it's rather cynical and elitist to say that something which empowered users "destroyed IT capabilities", and it's not like many of those small orgs really had IT capabilities.

But like HC, the Notes designer software was turned into an added-cost product, and after that both Notes and HC became the domain of 'IT experts' that knew how to work around the limitations of a rinky-dink platform.

This was all long ago, for most people now Notes is just a terrible email application.

Re: Hypercard – Way Too Early

#52

Post by thinkcomp »

dahjelle wrote: post #38
thinkcomp wrote: post #18

I've thought a lot about HyperCard. In 1994, when I was in fifth grade, I used HyperCard to make a demo of a program that would allow you to fax a grocery order to a store using a modem after you checked off the items you wanted to buy. Then the store would deliver your order to you. I didn't actually know how to make use of hardware devices like modems, but it was possible to make the user interface work reasonably…

Do you think the world has changed such that a modern HyperCard is just not something people would use? Or has the massive influx of "there's an app for that" papered-over the hole in the market?

I think it might be used, but I wonder if anyone would pay.

If Apple were run with a different mindset, they might turn XCode into HyperCard again. If Google were run with a different mindset and Android were something other than Java, you might see them build their own HyperCard-style development environment instead of relying on the abomination that is Eclipse.

Re: Hypercard – Way Too Early

#53

Post by mcphage »

dahjelle wrote: post #38
thinkcomp wrote: post #18

I've thought a lot about HyperCard. In 1994, when I was in fifth grade, I used HyperCard to make a demo of a program that would allow you to fax a grocery order to a store using a modem after you checked off the items you wanted to buy. Then the store would deliver your order to you. I didn't actually know how to make use of hardware devices like modems, but it was possible to make the user interface work reasonably…

Do you think the world has changed such that a modern HyperCard is just not something people would use? Or has the massive influx of "there's an app for that" papered-over the hole in the market?

> Do you think the world has changed such that a modern HyperCard is just not something people would use?

I think people would—its biggest strength is that tons of people could make their own "apps" using it, and I don't think that ability will ever become obsolete.

Re: Hypercard – Way Too Early

#54

Post by doctorwho »

flomo wrote: post #51
doctorwho wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lotus Notes was an awful way to do anything. It allowed people with little to no programming skill to destroy the IT capabilities of small business and non-profits. If that had been backed by anyone except Lotus it would have died on the drawing board (as it should have).

That was the entire appeal of Notes/Hypercard, people could throw together a small database application and it wasn't any more difficult than creating a spreadsheet. (The big difference was that Notes apps were automatically network client-server.) I think it's rather cynical and elitist to say that something which empowered users "destroyed IT capabilities", and it's not like many of those small orgs really had IT c…

Notes was always a terrible email application :)

You are right about the level of IT capability of most small shops, maybe I "crippled" would have been better than "destroyed".

But elitist?

Have you ever considered working on your home furnace? There are people who can do these things. The ones who THINK they can do it are Darwin Award winners.

The downside of an amateur rolling their own solution in Notes was not life threatening but it certainly wasn't smart.

Notes gave people who had no idea what they were doing the confidence to build solutions that were fine for personal use but completely unsustainable at even small office scale.

The "experts" who adopted HC and Notes were the ones who did the real damage though. These folks (and I knew a few) were just a step above the guy in the office who refilled the toner in the photocopier. They created half-working systems and then moved on. They didn't have to live with the technical debt they left in their wake.

They set unrealistic expectations for what good IT solutions should cost and left guys like me trying to clean up their mess for years.

Re: Hypercard – Way Too Early

#55

Post by flomo »

doctorwho wrote: post #54
flomo wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was the entire appeal of Notes/Hypercard, people could throw together a small database application and it wasn't any more difficult than creating a spreadsheet. (The big difference was that Notes apps were automatically network client-server.) I think it's rather cynical and elitist to say that something which empowered users "destroyed IT capabilities", and it's not like many of those small orgs really had IT c…

Notes was always a terrible email application :) You are right about the level of IT capability of most small shops, maybe I "crippled" would have been better than "destroyed". But elitist? Have you ever considered working on your home furnace? There are people who can do these things. The ones who THINK they can do it are Darwin Award winners. The downside of an amateur rolling their own solution in Notes was not li…

Sorry, I wrote a fairly long reply and HN told me my link had expired and the text was lost. Perhaps too long then :)

In any case, Notes ended up sucking, anyone who saw what happened can toast to that.

Re: Hypercard – Way Too Early

#56

Post by lutusp »

flomo wrote: post #55
doctorwho wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notes was always a terrible email application :) You are right about the level of IT capability of most small shops, maybe I "crippled" would have been better than "destroyed". But elitist? Have you ever considered working on your home furnace? There are people who can do these things. The ones who THINK they can do it are Darwin Award winners. The downside of an amateur rolling their own solution in Notes was not li…

Sorry, I wrote a fairly long reply and HN told me my link had expired and the text was lost. Perhaps too long then :) In any case, Notes ended up sucking, anyone who saw what happened can toast to that.

> Sorry, I wrote a fairly long reply and HN told me my link had expired and the text was lost.

Some suggestions. First, if you've typed longer than a minute, make a backup copy of your reply, even go so far as to compose it in a separate text editor, then paste the result into HN. Second, if you encounter the dreaded "link expired" message, select all (Ctrl+A) then copy (Ctrl+C) the content of the entry window, then press browser refresh, then paste (Ctrl+V) the text you just copied. Then click "Reply."

Re: Hypercard – Way Too Early

#57

Post by flomo »

lutusp wrote: post #56
flomo wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I wrote a fairly long reply and HN told me my link had expired and the text was lost. Perhaps too long then :) In any case, Notes ended up sucking, anyone who saw what happened can toast to that.

> Sorry, I wrote a fairly long reply and HN told me my link had expired and the text was lost. Some suggestions. First, if you've typed longer than a minute, make a backup copy of your reply, even go so far as to compose it in a separate text editor, then paste the result into HN. Second, if you encounter the dreaded "link expired" message, select all (Ctrl+A) then copy (Ctrl+C) the content of the entry window, then…

Hypothetically, if you stumbled upon some folks arguing about Lotus Notes R3, wouldn't you assume they knew the standard windows shortcuts?

(Trick question, R3 only had ctrl-insert etc OS/2 shortcuts!)

In any case I apologize my paste-buffer foibles denied you my three paragraphs of immense wisdom regarding the good & bad of an obsolete end-user friendly distributed database system that went out of style a couple decades ago.

Re: Hypercard – Way Too Early

#58

Post by lutusp »

flomo wrote: post #57
lutusp wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sorry, I wrote a fairly long reply and HN told me my link had expired and the text was lost. Some suggestions. First, if you've typed longer than a minute, make a backup copy of your reply, even go so far as to compose it in a separate text editor, then paste the result into HN. Second, if you encounter the dreaded "link expired" message, select all (Ctrl+A) then copy (Ctrl+C) the content of the entry window, then…

Hypothetically, if you stumbled upon some folks arguing about Lotus Notes R3, wouldn't you assume they knew the standard windows shortcuts? (Trick question, R3 only had ctrl-insert etc OS/2 shortcuts!) In any case I apologize my paste-buffer foibles denied you my three paragraphs of immense wisdom regarding the good & bad of an obsolete end-user friendly distributed database system that went out of style a couple dec…

> Hypothetically, if you stumbled upon some folks arguing about Lotus Notes R3, wouldn't you assume they knew the standard windows shortcuts?

Lowest common denominator, as they say. When I encounter someone who loses his content on the HN interface, I make some simplifying assumptions. :)

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