subject:"Metacard support"

Re: [OT] Sparta (was Re: Metacard support)

2003-12-23 Thread Wilhelm Sanke

After my timeout I had to focus on a number of other important issues, so my reply to Richard's post comes a bit late. Considering however the historic dimensions of the aspect in question, the delay is negligible.

On Thu, 04 Dec 2003 Richard Gaskin [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote (quoting me in the beginning):

I have looked up spartan in the Britannica World Language Dictionary
(part of the Encyclopedia Britannica). Here is the entry:

Spartan:
Pertaining to Sparta or the Spartians; heroically brave and enduring.
A native or citizen of Sparta; hence, one of exceptional valor and
fortitude.

While noted for their valor, Sparta is also a good argument against the
macroeconomics of militaristic societies.
Sparta was an expansive military culture, (snip)

Richard,

well, so are even modern nations.
Sad as it is, this more or less holds for all nations in ancient and modern history -
with really very few exceptions - so this is by no means a distinctive feature of
Sparta.
Most of the contributions to modern culture attributed to the ancient Greeks
(theatre, literature, philosophy) were specifically from Athens;

(snip)

Sparta was a civilization and a nation that existed for about one thousand years.
Platon is said to have been very much impressed by the political structure of Sparta.
The Greek-Roman historian Polybius assessed the Spartan constitution to be second-best
only to the Roman constitution (he could ill afford to state it was the best, because
he was in Roman employ).
The Spartan constitution and its practical implementation seems to have been much less
prone to manipulation than those of today's superpowers - from voter registration to
ballot counting.
Even newly introduced electronic voting does not prevent - indeed rather invite - manipulation. See the article by Marcia Pally Vote early and often: Electronic voting machines make it simple of Dec 15.

Hence this definition from Dictionary.com, which is probably what my
client
was referring to:

# Simple, frugal, or austere: a Spartan diet; a spartan lifestyle.
# Marked by brevity of speech; laconic.
# Courageous in the face of pain, danger, or adversity. F
(snip)

Richard Gaskin

Apparently we have two different definitions of Spartan here that even
somewhat overlap.

The differences result from the complex relation of language and reality
(whatever the latter really may be). Language and its particles,
words, are a means of communication, not a point-to-point representation
of reality. The meanings of words and their definitions may reflect
reality somehow, but evolve within societal groups carrying specific
intentions.

When Mr. Rumsfeld recently spoke of the old Europe he did so while
criticizing nations that were opposed to the intentions of his
administration. On the other hand, a few days ago old Europe was
chosen as the so-called word of the year here in the center of Europe
(this is done every year), implying the connotation of something one can
be proud of.

To understand the relationship between language and reality it is useful
to study the writings of linguists and philosophers like those of a
fellow-Californian of Richard, namely Senator S. I. Hayakawa (by the
way, as it were, a colleague of mine, as we were both teaching at the
University of Wisconsin - he some 50 years earlier than me).-

So my intention to describe the values of Metacard is best served by starting from the definition of the Encycopledia Britannica, containing and pointing to the attributes of Spartians

disciplined, enduring, efficient, and powerful

which I then translated to describe Metacard (still in these respects as opposed to Revolution) as

disciplined: concise and relatively short scripts; fewer parts of the
IDE that are interrelated and interact, organized surface

enduring: can handle a substantial amount of objects, e.g. controls

efficient: despite the material load the Metacard IDE maintains its
speed etc.

powerful: can be relatively easily customized to one's own needs;
quicker development because of fewer bugs etc.

autonomous: deserves to be preserved as an alternative IDE.---

Kevin Miller in his post of Dec 6 (subject Metacard support) acknowledged these attributes in so far as he wrote:

Revolution has been around for 7 years less than the MC IDE, and has many
more features. So we're not there yet on a raw efficiency or uncluttered
scale.

Now, I do not really insist on definitions or attributes for Metacard, my responses in this part of the thread were just triggered by Richard's mentioning a clients opinion.

I hope that the golden nugget Metacard which the Rev folks have acquired will be indeed exploited by them to improve the Revolution IDE by integrating parts of Metacard into Revolution or maybe by adapting paradigmatic ways of programming.

Regards,

Wilhelm Sanke

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Re: [OT] Sparta (was Re: Metacard support)

2003-12-23 Thread Richard Gaskin

Wilhelm Sanke wrote:

I certainly won't let my limited understanding of Greek history get in the
way of appreciating a great post. :)

 Kevin Miller in his post of Dec 6 (subject Metacard support) acknowledged
 these attributes in so far as he wrote:

 Revolution has been around for 7 years less than the MC IDE, and has many
 more features.  So we're not there yet on a raw efficiency or uncluttered
 scale. 
 
 Now, I do not really insist on definitions or attributes for Metacard, my
 responses in this part of the thread were just triggered by Richard's
 mentioning a clients opinion.
 
 I hope that the golden nugget Metacard which the Rev folks have acquired
 will be indeed exploited by them to improve the Revolution IDE by integrating
 parts of Metacard into Revolution or maybe by adapting paradigmatic ways of
 programming.

Amen to that, brother.  And there are always ever better ways to do things,
we learn as we go.  Take a gander at 4W Props in RevNet -- I'm considering
proposing that we might use a similar message buffering technique in MC
for even greater responsiveness.

From the Rev list yesterday re. the property sheet:



There's a subtle aspect to the way it works that may be
worth mentioning for others making things that respond to the
selectedObjectChanged message:

With most tools that respond to the selectedObjectChanged message, they do
so as it's sent, but the downside is that when you're drag-selecting
multiple objects the message is sent frequently, so the user interaction is
slowed as these tools update themselves.

With 4W Props the selectedObjectChanged is not responded to in real time.
Instead, it sends itself an update message in 100 milliseconds, after first
checking the pending messages to make sure it's not already waiting for one.
This small delay actually makes the experience lightning fast for the user:
the 1/10th second delay is not noticeable, but it greatly minimizes
interferences with the drag-selecting gesture, allowing a subjectively more
responsive experience.

I've started using this message buffering technique on all my tools that
respond to selectedObjectChanged, and now I can have many of my palettes
open without slowing down the user experience.

-- 
 Richard Gaskin 
 Fourth World Media Corporation
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 Tel: 323-225-3717   AIM: FourthWorldInc

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Metacard support

2003-12-08 Thread Alejandro Tejada

Kevin Miller wrote:
 
Revolution has been around for 7 years less than
the MC IDE, and has many more features.  
 
Particulary, I appreciate much the Geometry Manager.

 So we're not there yet on a raw efficiency or 
 uncluttered scale.  But it won't be long before we 
 are that too, and in the mean time, we have to
 cater for the larger number of users.  
 
I've noticed that novices computer users, are
afraid of the sheer complexity of many programs.
This complexity is reflected somehow by their 
interface. 
 
As Kevin said, RunRev caters to that larger number
of users that needs to feel confortable with an
interface that resembles his use of other softwares.
 
I suggest everyone here to take a look
at another software winner of the MacWorld magazine,
SketchUp. In their website they have some movies
that shows how to use this software.
3D software have been around for long, but IS the
interface to these same tools that put apart this
program.
 
I expect to see a more user customizable interface
in the future.
  
And you are quite free to go on using the MC IDE if
you wish.
 
Thanks Kevin, you really understand this need.

Developers who stay all day long within a software, 
quickly become aware of the particularities of an 
interface:
 
What is doing that palette in this place?
Why this dialog box do not have keyboard shortcuts?
How did they forget to include that property in
this window?
Who decided to make this window so small or so big?
Where did they put that property that must belong
here, with these other properties?
 
etc,etc,etc,
 
These impulses to reshape our environments hardly
could be stopped. MetaCard really invites the
programmers to reshape their programming enviroment.
And the unprotected code confirms that belief.
 
If anybody thinks that HyperCard users are
obstinated, then figure out how much obstinated
will become all programmers that had modeled an
interface to their particular needs.

There will be MetaCards users for long time.

al

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