Hypercard reimagined – an iOS app maker and private app store (opens in new tab)

That makes a little more sense. I'm very interested in this project. I might actually jump on board after I see it in action for a few months.

I wouldn't mind being able to send apps to my friends and everything without having to pay another amount to Apple for a developer account. But I don't think it's going to happen.

> h) For the avoidance of doubt, this [Commercial] Licensed Edition does not include access to the LiveCode engine source code found in the Community Edition. This Licensed Edition is not compatible with the terms of the GPL and such software may not be incorporated or utilized with this Licensed Edition.

So they've dual-licensed it. The Community Edition source on Github is all GPL with this exception: https://github.com/runrev/livecode/commit/51e3958082d9edd645...

The allegory to HyperCard is interesting as HyperCard had its own programming language, HyperTalk.

Same with Macromedia Director, which also had Lingo (which was similar to HyperTalk). I never considered those apps as "no programming required" but more like "less programming required"

That helps. Thanks

My biggest 'magic' moment in hypercard was this technique called one-card animation that I copied out of some book. It was basically a script to direct the lasso tool to select an area on the screen, then slowly drag it across the screen. Having it work seemed magical in that I had told the computer what to do and it listened. Been hooked on making software ever since!

You might also find the free community edition of LiveCode[1] handy. At a glance, looks very much like HyperCard. There is also Microsoft's Project Sienna[2] if you are on Windows 8.

[1] http://livecode.com/download/ [2] http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/en-us/app/microsoft-projec...

I started programming in HyperCard around age 7-8. The first things I did were basically interactive stories - think Myst with stick figures and a really childish plot/simplicity. Drawing pictures, placing buttons over them that took you to different pictures with more buttons. Dialogs with questions and multiple choice answer buttons. Eventually adding variables that would remember things that happened before and use those to change behavior later in the game.

I also had fun composing really bad melodies with the HyperCard sound command (that let you enter notes - it'd scale whatever sound effect in pitch)

edit: the greatest learning tools for me were all the included sample stacks. Tearing apart and editing those and the code that made them tick was an amazing learning experience ("oh! so instead of making 50 buttons, I can make one button, and do this thing with the mouse position and some math [something they make me do in school that I otherwise find pointless] and figure out which section was clicked!")

Having used scratch (very cool) I have been using the beta to teach them things like - this image is an ~object~ and it has properties. Look how we can tell it to change these properties over time etc. Its more conceptual than "this is the syntax of an if statement in objective-c". Pretty cool so far (as cool as scratch, just different)

From what I've heard of HyperCard and learning programming languages, children definitely could create a small game, short animation or interactive story. At nine years old, it would probably be rudimentary, but they could learn the basics. Without meaning to be rude, this question's like asking "What would you expect a nine year old to accomplish regarding writing and drawing?"

If you don't like that analogy, consider how children often learn the basics of woodworking or sewing through small projects that might not be useful or even be completed. Programming could work the same way.

Also, while this tale starts with seventh grade (13 years old?) -- I should think kids these days start out considerably more computer literate:

"Learning About Smalltalk" http://www.atariarchives.org/bcc1/showpage.php?page=61

"My name is Marian Goldeen. (...) I would like to tell you about how I got started working with computers at Xerox and the class I taught."

I started coding at the age of 10 on a ZX Spectrum back in the early 80's with BASIC.

So I would expect a 9 year old to be able to write simple programs, drawing simple 2D figures or question/answer programs.

    10 print "my name"
    20 goto 10

And move on from there?