Duckspeak vs. Smalltalk: Decline of the Xerox PARC Philosophy at Apple (2011)
Here&#x27;s some stuff I wrote about a HyperCard-inspired system called HyperLook (nee HyperNeWS (nee GoodNeWS)) and some stuff I developed with it:<p>SimCity, Cellular Automata, and Happy Tool for HyperLook (nee HyperNeWS (nee GoodNeWS))<p>HyperLook was like HyperCard for NeWS, with PostScript graphics and scripting plus networking. Here are three unique and wacky examples that plug together to show what HyperNeWS was all about, and where we could go in the future!<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;medium.com&#x2F;@donhopkins&#x2F;hyperlook-nee-hypernews-nee-goodnews-99f411e58ce4" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;medium.com&#x2F;@donhopkins&#x2F;hyperlook-nee-hypernews-nee-g...</a><p>Some highlights:<p>The Three Axis of AJAX, Which NeWS Also Has To Grind!!!<p>NeWS was architecturally similar to what is now called AJAX, except that NeWS coherently:<p>…(drum roll)…<p>1) Used PostScript CODE instead of JavaScript
for PROGRAMMING.<p>2) Used PostScript GRAPHICS instead of DHTML and CSS
for RENDERING.<p>3) Used PostScript DATA instead of XML and JSON
for DATA REPRESENTATION.<p>The Axis of Eval: Code, Graphics and Data<p>We will return to these three important dimensions of Code, Graphics and Data as a recurring theme throughout this article. But which way to go from here?<p>Alan Kay on NeWS:<p>“I thought NeWS was ‘the right way to go’ (except it missed the live system underneath). It was also very early in commercial personal computing to be able to do a UI using Postscript, so it was impressive that the implementation worked at all.” -Alan Kay<p>What’s the Big Deal About HyperCard?<p>&quot;I thought HyperCard was quite brilliant in the end-user problems it solved. (It would have been wonderfully better with a deep dynamic language underneath, but I think part of the success of the design is that they didn’t have all the degrees of freedom to worry about, and were just able to concentrate on their end-user’s direct needs.&quot;<p>&quot;HyperCard is an especially good example of a system that was “finished and smoothed and documented” beautifully. It deserved to be successful. And Apple blew it by not making the design framework the basis of a web browser (as old Parc hands advised in the early 90s …)&quot; -Alan Kay