Re: [Sheflug] Hypercard

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <nospam [at] sk.tsukuba.ac.jp>]

>>>>> "Chris" == Chris J/#6 <sixie [at] nccnet.co.uk> writes:

    Chris> Well you didn't say Hypercard - you said "...not supported
    Chris> in HTML" :)

<RANT ATTITUDE="oh, no, not another MONday!"
       CONTEXT="really tired from dealing with coders who think
                they know what users want">
Fuckin' technicians.

This is exactly why I put a strict term limit on my position as XEMacs
Release Manager.  The User does not know what he is talking about,
because he's not trained in talking to technicians.  Nor should he be,
it's the other way around.  But there ain't no techs with verbal
skills.  God, I'm tired.  *sob*

It's probably not your fault (and this being Linux, and a user's group
to boot, DEFINITELY not your job); nobody teaches techs anything
useful.  (Techs _learn_ how to program and do analysis, it's a _very_
rare individual who is able to _teach_ them anything about that they
haven't already figured out for themselves.)
</RANT>

When you talk to users (or even techs who do something different from
what you do) they're probably going to overload your vocabulary.

If you don't think about that, who will?

    Chris> HTML/CSS is all about layout - what you describe is
    Chris> functionality, and that's Javascript/Java/ActiveX/and any
    Chris> other widget you can stick on a page, I'd have thought.

Which is exactly why I asked _Matt_.  HTML (_he_ didn't mention CSS,
you did; and HTML _does_ have functionality: IMG, SCRIPT, A HREF,
FORM, and maybe more I don't recall offhand) doesn't have the powerful
functionality of HyperCard.  Java doesn't have the high-level layout
capability.  He mentioned both, but wants a fusion of the two, I
suspect.  (Still pending input from Matt on this.)  Plus additional
capability (like Xanadu-like two-way links, none of this "no way to go
but forward" HTML one-way link bogosity).  But I bet Matt most
definitely doesn't want to deal with "widgets," which require bondage
and discipline to get them to do what you want.

BTW, HTML should not have anything to do with layout.  Putting any
layout capabilities (font, color, size) in HTML was a mistake from the
word "go".  (Tables are not about layout, although that's the most
common use in HTML.  They are about relations, as any SQL programmer
can tell you.  And look what M$FT did to HTML so that Wart can produce
"HTML" that is invertible to wart format.  Arggghh.)

    Chris> In that case I mis-understood/mis-read what Hypercard was
    Chris> about - I was just responding to the original phrase of
    Chris> yours, which may have been ambiguous.

Wasn't mine, was Matt's.  And it definitely was ambiguous in context
of this list.  _He_ knows what he meant, even if he can't articulate
it to us in words of one syllable so that techs can understand.  But I
didn't.  Still, I wanted him to think what he was thinking, so I used
his word ("layer"), not another one that neither of us would
understand well.

Remember, HyperCard is ten years older than HTML.  It deserves respect
for its age, if nothing else.


-- 
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