Coding versus Scripting

[richmond62]

I am aware of the contradictions running right through our inherited IDE between 'script' and 'code'.

This, surely, reflects a general mix-up all over the internet . . . and as far as I am concerned the whole thing is a load of bollo: when I was at school (about 1975) nobody had heard of 'scripting', 'coding' meant sending secret messages to Mr Big about what James Bond had on his cornflakes, and we were doing Computer Programming.

Be that as it may, and one should always remember one cannot kick against the pricks (and there are some quite big pricks around) . . .

I interpret 'scripting' as 'writing code', and have NO particular preference, but do agree that the OXT IDE should stick to one of the two to avoid confusion.

Xojo (that's RealBASIC to Thee and Me) rabbits on about RAD (Rapid Application Development).

https://www.xojo.com/

I also wonder when a computer program mysteriously became an application.

[FourthWorld]

I also wonder when a computer program mysteriously became an application.

A software program is the application of compute resources to a given task.

Usage of "application" as synonymous with "software program" predates at least Macintosh 1.0, where the term was used throughout API documentation.

Usage of "app" as short for "application" came about not long after. Much of the press in the early days of Mac discussed the search for the "killer app", the program whose utility would be so undeniably obvious that it would drive computer sales. Desktop publishing was seen as a "killer app".

[OpenXTalkPaul]

Usage of "app" as short for "application" came about not long after. Much of the press in the early days of Mac discussed the search for the "killer app", the program whose utility would be so undeniably obvious that it would drive computer sales. Desktop publishing was seen as a "killer app".

Ah yes, I remember and the big search was for what was goin to be the 'killer app" to replace Desktop publishing as the next Killer App, which turned out to be HTTP & HTML (but could've been xTalkNet + Stacks of Cards over Gopher:// )

[OpenXTalkPaul]

I interpret 'scripting' as 'writing code', and have NO particular preference, but do agree that the OXT IDE should stick to one of the two to avoid confusion.

According to the god father of xTalk, Bill Atkinson, the idea of calling the included programming language a 'script' instead of a programming language was to differential it from lower level programming languages that had a much steeper learning curve (due to cryptic-looking syntax and nonsensical terminology those use) so as to not scaring off potential casual users.

Unlike many other languages at the time, HyperCard came with it's own GUI widgets kit (well a lot of it was actually in the Mac ROM), it's own programming simple language, and it was an visual UI layout tool, and an general app infrastructure, an 'API' that took care of and abstracted away most of the lower level work of communicating with the hardware so that you could get right to writing the logic for your particular use. More like a 'Virtual Machine' that simplified programming then it was an app. HyperTalk script writers would be called "Authors", because they would write a script for their 'app' in nearly-plain-English and their app might be as simple as a slide-show, a flip-book animation, or a chose-your-own-adventure style interactive story (obligatory mention of Myst goes here). You didn't call a command that was used in a menu, you would 'doMenu' and then the 'Engine' would emulate an actual user selecting that menu item from a menu as if a phantom user (actor) had done that acton themselves, manually.

As a development environment and as a general purpose tool for users to organize data and arrange media content with, it really was quite revolutionary versus other software at the time. Such a shame that it was mishandled in the early 1990s, and then neglected by Apple in the late 1990s, and then sentenced to wither away and die by Steve Jobs soon in 1998 soon after he came back to Apple as iCEO. That took another 6 to 8 years to really happen thanks to 'Classic Environment'. HyperCard wasn't officially removed from Apple software products until 2004!

--- hmm that seems like it should be part of the xTalk eBook

[OpenXTalkPaul]

Having been born in 1970, and growing up in parallel to the evolution of personal (allegedly) computing, I still find it very strange that what irrefutably became the most popular 'scripting' language, JavaScript, retained a lot of the cryptic-looking symbol syntax, and now needs another language (xTalk <> JS transpiler +HTMX ) to abstract the casual 'content author' from it! That sort of makes JS not fit into the original intention of calling a programing language a 'scripting' language. Although it is clear that JS borrowed an idea or two from HyperTalk ('OnMouseDown' for one example).