Is Transcript's English orientation a plus or minus?

[Dar Scott]

On Monday, February 9, 2004, at 03:34 AM, Frank Leahy wrote:

> I think you're confusing the language (xTalk), with the development 
> and runtime environment (call it HyperCard++ for the moment).  
> HyperCard++ is a Rapid Application Development environment that uses 
> the concepts of stacks, cards and controls to make it relatively easy 
> to build complex multi-window applications.  xTalk, the language that 
> is used to control this RAD, is a HyperTalk clone, but could 
> (theoretically) be replaced with any number of other languages, e.g. 
> C, JavaScript, VB, PHP, etc.

This is true.  I'd still be here if the language was graphical like 
that in LabView or was simple and powerful like Scheme.

Whatever language used should fit in and respect the environment of 
stacks and cards and controls and such.  There should be a synergy of 
some sort.

I often found in scripting that I wanted to switch to math notation 
(such as sigma), to embed tables to behave as functions and predicates, 
and to include unicode characters in line.

I like the naive view of values in Transcript.  I realize that it has 
some rough edges, but to the extent that it can keep concepts simple, 
that is good.

I suspect that as Transcript grows, it need not copy C or C++ or even 
Java, but can grow with rich abstractions and leave those in the dust.

Dar Scott