METACARD ANNOUNCES ADVANCED DEBUGGING ARCHITECTURE
Boulder, Apr 23, 2003 — The just-released 2.5 version of MetaCard now
includes the most advanced debugging features ever available for a
scripting language, making development of applications faster and easier
than ever before. The completed applications can be run on Windows
3.1/95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP, popular UNIX platforms (including Solaris, HPUX,
AIX, and Linux), and Mac OS 7/8/9/X. As has been the case with all versions
of MetaCard since version 1.0 was released in 1992, no preprocessing,
recompiling, redesign, or platform-specific debugging is required to deploy
an application on all platforms simultaneously.
MetaCard has a fully functional development environment on all platforms
and doesn’t rely on limited-function “players” or cross compilers. You can
build single-file double-clickable royalty-free applications on all
platforms: no shared libraries, virtual machines (Java or otherwise),
browsers, installers, or other add-ons are required. This means no DLL or
JVM version conflicts, and high reliability and low support costs for
applications you distribute.
The IDE boosts productivity far above what is possible using scripting
languages that were designed to be used with a text editor and console
window. The entire IDE is built using only standard MetaCard features,
which not only demonstrates the power of the MetaCard, but also provides
something not available with other tools: you can change any aspect of the
development environment to make it suit your needs.
Among the new debugging features, the new “Execution Contexts” dialog shows
the call stack that lead to the current error or breakpoint and allows
selecting contexts for display or manipulation of the variables in that
context. The new “Variable Watcher” dialog shows local and global
variables, and supports setting conditional breakpoints on any of them. The
new “Message Watcher” dialog selectively shows messages sent to each object
based on user actions. Also new to the 2.5 version are support for Unicode
text entry and display, a fully scriptable drag and drop architecture, and
support for many new features of the Mac OS X Aqua user interface.
MetaCard’s easy to learn high-level language (MetaTalk) enables even
non-programmers to build the productivity-enhancing applications they need.
Experienced developers will appreciate the flexibility they gain from
advanced language features like associative arrays, regular expressions,
support for manipulating binary data, high-level language support for
socket communication, and the increased productivity that comes with
freedom from the compile/link/debug cycle that is characteristic of
development in third-generation languages like C++, Java, and BASIC.
MetaTalk offers the power and productivity of open source scripting
languages like Perl and Python without the syntactic gymnastics, and with a
fully integrated graphical toolkit instead of having to use one grafted on
from another language.
A single-user, all platform license (that’s right: a single license key can
be used on any supported platform, no need to buy a separate license for
each), which includes a year of free upgrades and unlimited tech support
via email, is $995. Educational institutions receive a 50% discount. K12
schools can purchase MetaCard through a special program for $250 for a
10-user license which comes bundled with “MetaTalk Programmer”, an on-line
learning package that has kids writing real programs in a matter of hours.
Running MetaCard in a non-graphical mode (like a normal UNIX shell script
or Windows batch file) is free on all platforms, including Darwin, the UNIX
platform underlying Mac OS X.
For more information or to get the free Starter Kit version of MetaCard,
contact:
MetaCard Corporation
4710 Shoup pl.
Boulder, CO 80303
303-494-6763
303-499-9855 (fax)
http://www.metacard.com/