Learning RR's Transcipt

[DVGlasgow]

In a message dated 2/6/03 1:54:03 AM, Ken N writes:

<< Wow! I had one of those things, too. Little black thing that plugged into a

B&W TV, with a pressure sensitive flat keyboard, used a standard portable

tape recorder for storage, right? I went from there to AtariBASIC, then to

HyperCard, now I'm here (but still use HC). >>

I am ploughing through a backlog of lists, so i am sorry if another saddo has 
pointed this out already.  The Spectrum had the (in)famous 'dead flesh' 
keyboard.  The ZX81 came with the nasty laminated one.  But how I loved them both.

Not that this is why I am posting, I agree with the book recommendations 
posted by Ken, - but I was helped a lot by the book 'Hyperprogramming' by the 
exotic sounding Colouris & Thimbleby.  (Incidentally, their first names were the 
less-than-exotic  George and Harold)  It came with a CD containing tutorials 
and examples, and took a different but complementary approach to the others.  
Just checked and it is still available on Amazon.  


Best wishes,

David Glasgow
Home/ forensic assessments --> http://members.aol.com/dvglasgow/";>
DVGlasgow 
Courses --> http://www.i-Psych.co.uk";>i-Psych
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Re: Learning RR's Transcipt

[Heather Williams]

> You can order a paper manual, but it probably won't include the new things
> in the latest version (someone yell at me if I'm wrong, please)

Not yelling, but just for the record, you are wrong. The 2.0 docs will be
totally up to date, hence the delay in getting them to print.

Regards,

Heather

-- 
Heather Williams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
Runtime Revolution Ltd.
Tel: +44 (0) 131 7184333 Fax: +44 (0)1639 830707
Revolution: Software at the Speed of Thought

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Learning RR's Transcipt

[Ken Norris]

**
Welcome, Michael...

> From: "Michaeldb B" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: Learning RR's Transcipt
> Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2003 14:47:12 +0100
> 
> Richard Gaskin wrote:
> 
>> Many if not most of the readers here exhibit unusually high intelligence..
>> Most of the folks on this list have experience in other languages..
> 
> I'm sure those points are generally true, but I don't think they apply, to
> this particular reader, for one. I'll explain why..
> 
> I had a "Sinclair Spectrum" in the 80's and learned to program, a little, in
> its Basic language.
--snip
Wow! I had one of those things, too. Little black thing that plugged into a
B&W TV, with a pressure sensitive flat keyboard, used a standard portable
tape recorder for storage, right? I went from there to AtariBASIC, then to
HyperCard, now I'm here (but still use HC).
--
> Then there was a long gap, before I got a (Windows) PC -
> 5 years ago. I was frustrated to find, no easy way to programme, in Windows.
--
Check out VisualBASIC (oops...is that a no-no here?), although it's not as
easy to write scripts for. I think you're in the right place now.
--
> I searched - for a Language (or tool) I could cope with. In those searches,
> I never came across any of the "Card" programming tools.(Maybe I didn't
> realise what they were about).
--
MetaCard for PC's (cross-platform).
--snip
> So, I started trying to learn Transcript. (As a newbie) I go through the
> extensive documentation. But, probably because I am...let's say
> "intellectually challenged", I don't find it easy to learn.
--
Did you build the "Hello" stack? Give yourself plenty of lattitude, space
things out to avoid frustration and burnout, breath deep and practice
patience ;-)
--
> I've had RR for about 10 weeks now. At 66 yrs, this is a hobby pursuit. I'm
> attempting to build a "Horserace Selection" stack. (What else?).
--
Good grief!, You're about as bad as me in that respect. Nothing like picking
a challenge from the git-go to make yourself learn. The first actual program
I ever wrote was in AtariBASIC (on an original Atari 400 no less), for
spread-betting on football.
--
> At first, I
> found it slow going. But, now I'm making progress. The link, to earlier
> Hypertalk stuff, helps. I've sent for a Hypertalk book. What I find myself
> yearning for..are more extensive script examples than are found in the docs.
--
I agree. One of my ideas for beginners is an opensource side-by-side
instructional stack. With some animation that leads you step-by-step, i.e.,
you watch the instructional stack, then try the same actions yourself in
your own stack. You should be able to open the editor and study its scripts,
too, which would be a big help to educators (or anyone) wishing to develop a
course on programming using similar methods.

A progressive set of these things (Beginners, Calculations, DB's,
Communications, Graphics, etc.) could be developed one at a time and placed
on the web for download. Some are already there, i.e., I recommend looking
at the list of User Contributions at RR's website:
<http://www.runrev.com/Revolution1/developercentral/usercontributions.html>

Most of those are opensourced scripts so you can look at how things were
done.
--
> It's like owning a Ferrari and not knowing how to drive.
--
Heh, heh. Congratulations...I've never seen it put better!
--snip 
> One problem I have is - how to deal with the fractions -13/8, 100/30 etc -
> used in betting markets.
--
You cannot deal with fractions as fractions. Something like x = 13/8 will
always return a FPN (floating point number) in the container (variable), in
this case x = 1.625. To check out such things, you should rely a great deal
on the Message Box (keyboard equivalent 'cmd/M'), but I assume you already
know that.
--
> I was dissapointed to find, are no books on RR.
--
You can order a paper manual, but it probably won't include the new things
in the latest version (someone yell at me if I'm wrong, please) and the note
says they're temporarily out of stock, but here's the URL anyway (watchout
for wraparounds):
<http://secure.runrev.com/cgi-bin/miva?Merchant2/merchant.mvc+Screen=CTGY&St
ore_Code=RROS&Category_Code=RM>
--
> So I looked for books on
> Hypertalk. Although, there are tons of Hypertalk books, available in the
> U.S. There are hardly any available locally in the U.K. where I live. I've
> ordered one from the U.S.
--
Which one? I recommend "HYPERTALK 2.2, The Book" (Second Edition) Winkler,
Kamins, DeVoto. Jean

Re: Learning RR's Transcipt

[rebolask]

Gee you have missed the Revolution !
You must also have missed the ReBolution then :D
http://www.rebol.com/prod-view.html
 
(Rebol has about 40 platforms support. I am not especially fond of 
multiplatform, it is rather that Rebol has also very easy and advanced concept. 
You can do fantastic thing in just a few minutes. Of course if you want to do a 
professional application it can take days, weeks or months :) )
 
>On researching RR on the web, I found all the other similar "Card's" 
(Metacard etc). I realised I had missed years of it all.
 
So, I started trying to learn Transcript. (As a newbie) I go through 
the extensive documentation. But, probably because I am...let's say 
"intellectually challenged", I don't find it easy to learn.
 
I've had RR for about 10 weeks now. At 66 yrs, this is a hobby pursuit. I'm 
attempting to build a "Horserace Selection" stack. (What else?). At first, 
I found it slow going. But, now I'm making progress. The link, to earlier 
Hypertalk stuff, helps. I've sent for a Hypertalk book. What I find myself 
yearning for..are more extensive script examples than are found in the 
docs.

Re: Learning RR's Transcipt

[Cubist]

sez [EMAIL PROTECTED]:
>I've had RR for about 10 weeks now. At 66 yrs, this is a hobby pursuit. I'm
>attempting to build a "Horserace Selection" stack. (What else?). ...
>One problem I have is - how to deal with the fractions -13/8, 100/30 etc -
>used in betting markets. A search on fractions, in the list, produces just
>one post, about the fractions used in cooking. This didn't help.  ...
>Is it my lack of knowledge, or is there a lack of specific commands, for
>manipulating numbers in RR?.
   There are plenty of commands for manipulating numbers in Transcript/RR. 
The question is, exactly what sort of numerical manipulations does your HS stack 
need to perform? I rather suspect that if Transcript doesn't have any 
built-in functions that do what you need, it shouldn't be all that difficult to "roll 
your own"... so if you could clue the rest of us in on what your needs are, 
with any luck we'll be able to help you meet them.
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Learning RR's Transcipt

[Michaeldb B]

Richard Gaskin wrote:
 
> Many if not most of the readers here exhibit unusually high 
intelligence..
> Most of the folks on this list have experience in other 
languages..
 
I'm sure those points are generally true, but I don't think they 
apply, to this particular reader, for one. I'll explain why..
 
I had a "Sinclair Spectrum" in the 80's and learned to program, a little, 
in its Basic language. Then there was a long gap, before I got a (Windows) PC 
- 5 years ago. I was frustrated to find, no easy way to programme, in 
Windows.
 
I searched - for a Language (or tool) I could cope with. In those searches, 
I never came across any of the "Card" programming tools.(Maybe I didn't 
realise what they were about).
Then, in March, I saw RunRev, on a magazine disk (PCPlus) and from the 
write-up - it seemed what I was looking for. I was very pleasantly 
surprised, by the ease of object
creation and manipulation. On researching RR on the web, I found all the 
other similar "Card's" (Metacard etc). I realised I had missed years of it 
all.
 
So, I started trying to learn Transcript. (As a newbie) I go through 
the extensive documentation. But, probably because I am...let's say 
"intellectually challenged", I don't find it easy to learn.
 
I've had RR for about 10 weeks now. At 66 yrs, this is a hobby pursuit. I'm 
attempting to build a "Horserace Selection" stack. (What else?). At first, 
I found it slow going. But, now I'm making progress. The link, to earlier 
Hypertalk stuff, helps. I've sent for a Hypertalk book. What I find myself 
yearning for..are more extensive script examples than are found in the 
docs.
 
I realise as Richard (Gaskin) says, most here, are experienced. But, with 
the lack of a book (Dan Shafer has one coming, I read) complete newcomers to RR, 
must have some level of frustration. It's like owning a Ferrari and not knowing 
how to drive. I find the script editor's error messages helpful. I just try out 
different code and move on. But I still long for more. I have searched the web 
extensively and not found what I need.
 
One problem I have is - how to deal with the fractions -13/8, 100/30 
etc - used in betting markets. A search on fractions, in the list, 
produces just one post, about the fractions used in cooking. This didn't help. 
As I am beginning to understand, there may be a problem - trying to deal 
with fractions on a computer - and in RR. At present, I just don't know. I 
downloaded the Beta version of 2.0. because of the cookbook. It didn't give me 
much help either.
 
I was dissapointed to find, are no books on RR. So I looked for books 
on Hypertalk. Although, there are tons of Hypertalk books, available in the 
U.S. There are hardly any available locally in the U.K. where I live. I've 
ordered one from the U.S. I have no idea, as yet,  if it will offer answers 
to the questions I have. Dealing with maths/numbers especially.
Is it my lack of knowledge, or is there a lack of specific commands, for 
manipulating numbers in RR?.
 
RunRev is a wonderful product.
 
Michael Bird