Lingo- Good, Bad, or Ugly?

Date:    Sun, 10 Sep 1995 19:41:57 EDT
From:    John Dowdell <71333.42@COMPUSERVE.COM>
Subject: Re: LINGO-  Good, Bad, or Ugly?

imho, a lot depends on the background of the person learning it. As Dorian Dowse pointed out, there are certain structures that all languages share, such as conditional tests, repeat loops and so on. If you're already comfortable with these constructs then you'll be ahead of someone who isn't.

If you've come from a strict procedural background such as C or BASIC, then the concepts behind event-driven programming would also need to be learned. There isn't one big mass of code in Lingo -- whenever the mouse is clicked or the playback head advances events are generated, and these events percolate through the system until they're handled. These handlers can be in various places which are searched in a clear hierarchy. Event handlers are wrapped up in separate objects.

If you're comfortable with similar event-driven languages such as HyperTalk or OpenTalk, then you'll already be comfortable with handlers and English-like syntax. Director offers a level beyond strict self-contained cards, however -- there's a multimedia database called the Cast which is sequenced and referenced through the Score. Lingo can override the Score's instructions by making an animation element a "puppet," where Lingo pulls the strings. This indirection is great, but only once you learn it! <g>

There are levels beyond this, too -- defining logical classes which inherit from each other -- but those are options for later exploration. Many presentations actually use a very simple subset of perhaps a dozen Lingo commands.

Perhaps the best way of getting a useful opinion about learning Lingo, Lisa, would be to form your own opinion. <g> There are many third-party books in the market now, and while some cover basic aspects, you can also learn a lot about Lingo from the bookstores. Scott Fisher's "Macromedia Director: Your Personal Consultant" offers a good view of the seven basic Lingo commands, while Jason Roberts' "Director Demystified" covers the range of Lingo. (btw, the DIRECT-L list is in the acknowledgments to Jason's book. ;)

Other books go into Lingo, too, but the best specific resource may be "Macromedia Director Lingo Workshop," by John Thompson and Sam Gottlieb. JT is the architect of Lingo (yes, one person), and the book contains plenty of examples and practice movies. In an interview in Tab Julius's "Lingo Users Journal" JT describes how Lingo is actually based upon concepts of SmallTalk (only stylistically like HyperTalk), and how it is written in C (not COBOL). If you wish to learn Lingo from the ground up, this is a good complement to the manuals.

People's opinions vary. Mark Snoswell has had posts on this list before, and from their tenor I'm bummed but not surprised by his recent comments. At least he used his real name, though. <g>

When you write, "Is lingo difficult to learn or am I just stupid?" I'd have to say neither, and both: just as learning channel operations in an imaging tool is difficult, or cleaning up audio or getting good compression on a video, so is learning to control interactivity something that demands time -- and all of us can be smarter than we currently are. Still, we're able to do some rather amazing things, and we're definitely able to learn this stuff, so overall it's rather hopeful. ;)

A period of immersion worked for me, and I know it's worked for others, too... getting many ways to look at the same material can help too. Go for it, Lisa!

Regards,
John Dowdell
Macromedia Tech Support