Editing HyperTalk (section)

{{Short description|Programming language}}

{{Infobox programming language
 | name                   = HyperTalk
 | paradigm               = [[Procedural programming|procedural]], [[Event-driven programming|event-driven]]
 | released               = {{Start date|1987}}
 | designer               = [[Dan Winkler (computer scientist)|Dan Winkler]]
 | developer              = [[Apple Inc.|Apple Computer Inc.]]
 | influenced_by          = [[Natural language programming]], [[Pascal (programming language)|Pascal]]
 | influenced             = [[ActionScript]], [[AppleScript]], [[ECMAScript]], [[JavaScript]], [[Lingo (programming language)|Lingo]], [[LiveCode]], [[SenseTalk]], [[SuperTalk]], [[SK8 (programming language)|SK8]]
}}
'''HyperTalk''' is a discontinued high-level, [[procedural programming|procedural]] [[programming language]] created in 1987 by [[Dan Winkler (computer scientist)|Dan Winkler]] and used in conjunction with [[Apple Inc.|Apple Computer]]'s [[HyperCard]] hypermedia program by [[Bill Atkinson]]. Because the main target audience of HyperTalk was beginning programmers, HyperTalk [[Programmer|programmers]] were usually called "authors" and the process of writing programs was known as "[[Scripting language|scripting]]". HyperTalk scripts resembled written [[English language|English]] and used a logical structure similar to that of the [[Pascal (programming language)|Pascal programming language]].

HyperTalk supported the basic control structures of [[Procedural programming language|procedural languages]]: repeat for/while/until, if/then/else, as well as function and message "handler" calls (a function handler was a subroutine and a message handler a procedure). [[Datatype|Data types]] usually did not need to be specified by the programmer; conversion happened transparently in the background between [[string (computer science)|strings]] and numbers. There were no [[Class (computer science)|classes]] or [[data structure]]s in the traditional sense; in their place were special [[string literal]]s, or "lists" of "items" delimited by commas (in later versions the "itemDelimiter" property allowed choosing an arbitrary character).  Code execution typically began as a response to an event such as a mouse click on a UI widget.

In the late 1980s, Apple considered<ref name="flynn19890227"/> using [[HyperCard]]'s HyperTalk [[scripting language]] as the standard language across the company and within its [[classic Mac OS]] operating system, as well as for [[interprocess communication]] between Apple and non-Apple products. The company did not oppose the development of imitations like [[SuperCard]], but it created the HyperTalk Standards Committee to avoid incompatibility between language variants.<ref name="flynn19890227">{{Cite magazine |last=Flynn |first=Laurie |date=1989-02-27 |title=Apple Ponders Standardizing on HyperTalk |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IToEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PT30 |magazine=InfoWorld |page=31}}</ref> The [[case sensitivity|case-insensitive]] language was initially [[Interpreted language|interpreted]], but gained [[just-in-time compilation]] with HyperCard 2.0.<ref name=mactechCI2>Dave Kelly, [http://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.07/07.09/CompileIt!2.0/index.html "Tools of the Trade: CompileIt! 2.0!"], ''MacTech'', Vol. 7 No. 9</ref>