Mar 94 Editor's Page
Volume Number: 10
Issue Number: 3
Column Tag: The Editor's Page
Shaking, Changing, Looking For Bedrock 
And Don’t Forget Hypercard Too!
By Neil Ticktin, Editor-in-Chief
Shaking, Changing, looking for Bedrock and don’t forget HyperCard
too!
How’s that for a mouthful? This month, I’d like to bring you up to date on a
number of different topics. Feel free to skip through those sections that you don’t want
to read, but don’t blame us if you miss something important!
The Northridge (Los Angeles) Earthquake
First, for those of you who were/are curious, we survived the earthquake. You
may have noticed that this issue is about a week late - you can thank mother nature for
that one. The important thing is that no one in our office was hurt (although there
were a couple of very close calls). Everyone had a considerable amount of personal
property damage and mess to clean up. One of our people had their home “red tagged”
(aka condemned). Our offices came through nearly unscathed - but as you might
imagine, even at this writing (two weeks after the quake) we’re all a bit on edge. For
those of you who asked when we’re moving to some place with four seasons, we already
have them - drought, riots, fire and earthquakes!
Thank you to all of you who sent well wishes. Our sincere gratitude to those that
made us laugh. The best note was from Marie D’Amico (Steve Capps’ wife) who wrote
“Too bad life doesn’t have a Clean Up menu.” The April issue will return (as with the
rest of our lives) to our normal schedule. In the meantime, we’ll be searching for
something solid to stand on - maybe bedrock (or is it Bedrock - not!)?
Please welcome our new Editor!
For those of you who haven’t heard, we’ve expanded our editorial staff. Xplain
Corporation, the publisher of MacTech Magazine, has engaged Scott Boyd - a Macintosh
industry veteran - as the Editor of MacTech Magazine.
Scott brings with him a substantial amount of technical experience and is a
veteran of Apple. He has published works with Texas A&M, MacTutor, and at MacHack,
as well as has contributed to parts of develop and Inside Macintosh. Scott is the
co-creator of the MacHack Best Hack Contest and a frequent speaker at Apple’s
Worldwide Developers’ Conference, Macworld Expo, and the MacHack Conference. In
1985, Scott co-founded the MacHax™ Group which developed custom Macintosh
applications. In 1988, Scott joined Apple Computer, Inc. as part of a tools group. He
continued on as part of the “Blue Meanies”, “X-Men”, and finally, as a System
Software Technical Lead. During his involvement at Apple, Scott was the Anti-virus
development team lead, a member of the Bug-tracking system development team,
system architecture consultant, low-level coder, debugger, and key contact with many
groups around Apple. As part of Apple’s move to PowerPC-based Macintosh, he helped
prepare the way for native code on RISC Macintosh, was a technical evangelist to key
3rd-party developers, led over sixty technical people and was responsible for the
on-time delivery of system software.
The addition of an Editor represents Xplain’s continued and increasing
commitment to bring quality information to Macintosh developers. Scott will take over
much of the day-to-day editorial responsibilities. He knows the Macintosh, he knows
the magazine, he knows Apple, and he knows the developer industry. His broad,
in-depth knowledge of the Macintosh and the industry make him the ideal Editor for a
publication as technical as ours. The magazine will continue to cover topics for novice,
intermediate and expert Macintosh developers, but now we’ll have even better
resources to do so.
Scott has had impact on this issue, but you will see more of his work in the
months to come. Scott can be reached at any of the “editorial” addresses listed on page
2. If you would like to contact me, please start using the “general” e-mail addresses
for the most direct access. Please welcome Scott to the MacTech Magazine family -
and, as always, let us know what you think!
Some stylistic changes
Starting this month, we’re going to try some stylistic changes to the source code
listings. Our primary goal is to improve readability. To do that, we’ll be drawing on
work done by Stanford Professor Emeritus Donald Knuth. While we won’t follow his
style to the letter, we are going to start with an attempt to distinguish more clearly
between comments and code. If you have thoughts on how we’ve done it (see this
month’s Programmer’s Challenge and HyperCard Stack Translators for examples),
please let us know by e-mail whether you like it, and whether there are additional
changes you would like to see.
Where’s the THINKTop 10?
Some of you may notice that this month there’s no THINKTop 10. As many of you
know, the technical support group for almost all of Symantec’s products has moved to
Eugene, OR. That includes the technical support folks in Bedford, MA. The monthly
column will return in the April issue after a one month hiatus.
Bedrock - the continuing saga
It’s official, after a year and a half of collaboration, Apple and Symantec have
decided to end the Bedrock alliance. That announcement was made on January 24th. We
spoke to Ike Nassi and Emilio Robles at Apple, as well as Gene Wang and Heather Hedin
at Symantec about the transition - what it means now and what it symbolizes. Here’s
what they said.
Officially, Symantec granted Apple a “worldwide, perpetual license to distribute
and further develop Bedrock. Additionally, Apple granted Symantec a worldwide
perpetual license to use specific Apple technology in future Symantec products.” Some
of you might ask “isn’t this what they had before?” The answer, according to Apple is
no. Apple had input into Bedrock, but not control of the framework. Furthermore,
Apple now has rights to distribute Bedrock. In case you were wondering, Apple won’t
comment on the technology they are licensing to Symantec.
According to Nassi, “Apple intends to make Bedrock the tool of choice for OpenDoc
part development.” About six months ago, Apple started looking at the contradiction
between working on an application framework like Bedrock when OpenDoc was
emerging as an important part of Macintosh. They saw the trend towards “parts”
instead of monolithic applications and wanted their tools to reflect this.
As with any transfer of technology, one can look at this in two ways - one positive
and one negative. Symantec is by far the largest supplier of Macintosh development
tools. Now that they have some competition from Metrowerks (see January, 1994
issue), they are re-examining their strategies. Symantec says that they are “focusing
on their knitting” - developer tools for Macintosh.
There are a couple of interesting things to note - you should come to your own
conclusions though. Symantec has said in the past that Q&A (Symantec’s initial “claim
to fame”) was being built with Bedrock. Yet, to date, we haven’t seen the Macintosh
version based on this technology. Next, Apple, IBM, Novell, Sun, Taligent, and
WordPerfect are planning on forming an organization called CILabs which will “foster
co-development activities related to OpenDoc.” Symantec’s Gene Wang was “excited
about OpenDoc” yet Symantec is missing from the list of early adopters. To be fair,
the organization hasn’t been formed yet, so this may not mean anything. One last thing
- Apple and Symantec are still working together in other areas. Although their
Bedrock relationship is ending, other parts of their relationship are still quite active.
If you are looking towards OpenDoc development, you might be wondering
whether it will require Bedrock. The answer is definitely no - you’ll be able to
develop for OpenDoc with and without Bedrock. Apple is hoping that their efforts with
Bedrock will make your efforts to develop OpenDoc parts easier.
If you are wondering about Symantec’s class library strategy - you are going to
have all kinds of choices. Symantec will be looking to support TCL, MacApp, and
Bedrock not to mention Microsoft Foundation Classes and others. In other words, you’ll
be able to pick and choose your tools and libraries from Symantec and other vendors.
It is good to see the reconciliation of the concepts behind Bedrock and OpenDoc -
application vs. parts. Now, Apple needs to deliver by bringing developers more help
than hassle - a tall order for a company that has not been doing a lot for developers
lately.
And now, back to the editorialHypercard’s Renaissance
For a long time, there has not been a lot going on in the HyperCard arena. Claris
did nothing but harm to HyperCard - almost killing it in the marketplace. During
their tenure, they messed up the HyperCard business model and neglected to do any
development on the product. With Apple taking HyperCard back from Claris, we
already see a whole lot more happening. Apple has listened to a number of the
complaints that people had and tried to address them. The result is version 2.2.
This issue is a HyperCard issue dedicated to the Renaissance of HyperCard. The
first HyperCard article that you’ll see is a review of the new version, so that you can
get a “feel” for the current product. Next up is an article about multimedia authoring
and then another about stack translators. There’s also a piece from Chris Espinosa
about how you might use HyperCard. Now that HyperCard is coming back around, let us
know what you’d like to see in the future.
But, the real question is, what is this new HyperCard and why is it important?
Bottom line: if you want to create something custom - something better suited for
scripting than programming - HyperCard might be your best buddy. My favorite new
feature is the ability to create standalone applications from within HyperCard - a
feature called “Stack to application”. But the best part of HyperCard today is that
there are a whole bunch of third party tools out there that are designed to fill the gaps
that HyperCard doesn’t cover. Here’s a few
epsiTalk from epsi computer systems, inc. gives you multi-user capabilities for
HyperCard. Multiple users can edit the same stacks simultaneously with record
locking and other standard multi-user details.
Resource Navigator II from Bliss Interactive Technologies allows you to create,
edit and playback multiple media types, including QuickTime movies, in your
HyperCard stack. No programming or scripting is necessary.
I/O Port System from Ansan Industries, Ltd. helps HyperCard users with
monitoring, sensing and control systems for home automation, security and fire
systems, HVAC, lighting, industrial processes, lab experiments and data acquisition.
With this product you can have up to 64 digital inputs.
Nine To Five Software’s Reports DataPro helps you create professional quality
printing, viewing and data management features for your stack.
Heizer Software has a number of tools for HyperCard. InColor helps colorize
your stacks without scripting. CompileIt! 2.5 is a HyperTalk compiler for the
creation of external commands and functions. WindowScript is an interface design tool
that allows you to create dialogs, windows and floating palettes. Double-XX is a kernel
which contains a HyperTalk interpreter and an XCMD interface for the creation of
standalone applications. PrintReport, AskText, and LSelect XCMDs and XFCNs are a set
of utility externals that help with printing, text editing windows and lists. PolyTools
lets you create irregular-shaped buttons which are functionally equivalent to regular
HyperCard buttons. FileFlex gives you the tools to build “wickedly fast” databases
with HyperCard. HyperExternals Pro is a collection of over 85 professionally written
general purpose XCMDs and XFCNs. HyperGraph is a complete graphing package for
HyperCard. StackStarter 2.0 is a set of stack components, examples, tools, tips, etc
Graphical Business Interfaces, Inc.’s TableIt! provides the ability to display
tabular data, ICONs, PICTs, SICN resources in a row and column format.
DASWorks’ ListTable helps you create and edit lists and tables with HyperCard.
Full Moon Software’s commstalk for HyperCard turns HyperCard into a powerful
and versatile host-access and front-ending tool.
Sheller Development’s PopScript is a scripters’ tool. It is a control panel add-on
to HyperCard’s script editor giving you the options for sorting, markers, fonts,
handler grouping and more.
Symplex Systems’ HyperTint is a set of XCMDs for adding color to HyperCard -
backdrop pictures, button colors, visual effects, etc
Christopher Computers’ HyperShare v2.2 can make your data available to
multiple users simultaneously.
Cyan, Inc.’s Peacock is a utility for help with importing and exporting.
FaceWare’s HyperFace 1.1 allows HyperCard programmers to call FaceWare
modules from HyperTalk.
Softstream International’s HyperHITDeluxe 2.0 has XCMDs and XFCNs for adding
true database support to your stack.
In addition there are a couple of good information resources - Advanced
HyperCard Solutions by BFSGroup, The Complete HyperCard 2.2 Handbook by Danny
Goodman, and HyperTalk 2.2 The Book by Dan Winkler, Scot Kamins and Jeanne Devoto.
There’s not enough room here to give you full contact information on these
companies. You can find out more in the HyperCard Companion Products & Services
Directory by Joint Solutions Marketing (408/338-6471). Alternatively, contact
our offices for more information on anything listed here - via phone
(310/575-4343), fax (310/575-0925), or e-mail (productinfo@xplain.com).
So where is HyperCard going from here? Apple has made significant progress on
the product - their new approach to scripting is great. But, there’s a lot more work to
do. Apple will hopefully show more continuing development commitment to HyperCard
than it has to its other development tools (i.e., MPW, ResEdit, etc). The HyperCard
engineers should work on such things as better integrated color (which is still below
SuperCard standards) as well as working to fine tune the product (i.e., size of the
runtime in the Stack to Application feature). We wish them the best of luck - how
many second chances does a product get anyway?
Neil Ticktin, Editor-in-Chief
Referenced by (2):