Post #413011

2026-02-18 15:00 UTC

You know what? HyperCard was a glorious moment in time that I dearly miss: an army of non-experts were bashing together and sharing weird and wonderful stacks that were part 'zine, part adventure game and part database. Instead of laughing at vibe-coders, maybe we should ask ourselves why the current state-of-the-art in beginner-friendly programming tools is a planet-boiling roulette wheel.

Replies (6)

@LingLass@vmst.io 2026-02-26 03:13

jonathanhogg@mastodon.social Wow—I will be borrowing that lovely phrase “planet boiling roulette wheel.” That sums it up so well!

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@owen@mementomori.social 2026-02-26 12:57

@jonathanhogg@mastodon.social Apart from a brief flirtation with Basic on a ZX Spectrum my first brush with the logic of coding was HyperTalk. I fell deeply in love with the possibilities that seemed to be hidden inside it. It felt like a rabbit hole with new and unexpected surprises every time you fell down another level. And it equipped me to earn a living for a few short years when multimedia was a thing. Lingo in Macromedia Director, anyone? I wager that Lingo wouldn’t have existed without Hypercard.

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@jonathanhogg@mastodon.social 2026-02-18 15:54

On the gripping hand, if you're a trained programmer using vibe-coding because of a perceived increase in your productivity, or pressure from management to increase your productivity, I would refer you to my first post in this thread…

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@pikesley@mastodon.me.uk 2026-02-18 15:19

@jonathanhogg@mastodon.social "planet-boiling roulette wheel" is the name of my upcoming experimental jazzcore EP

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@ireneista@adhd.irenes.space 2026-02-18 15:18

@jonathanhogg@mastodon.social well put

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@StaceyCornelius@zeroes.ca 2026-02-18 15:22

@jonathanhogg@mastodon.social HyperCard was great.

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