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Squeak and Liberty Basic get a plug

June 24, 2006 12:14:02.321

Bill Machrone of PC Magazine brings up Liberty Basic and Squeak in his latest column:

You'll also see why Augment has a die-hard core of fans intent on moving it into the open-source world. Although Augment fully embraces mouse technology and the GUI, you drive it primarily with single-key commands. This may seem primitive compared with the nearly endless capabilities of Microsoft Word, but experienced Augment users will tell you that there's no faster or better way to create a structured, internally linked document that you and others can easily expand, edit, and link to other documents.

Two main efforts to breathe new life into Augment are under way; information about them is available at the HyperScope Wiki (blueoxen.net/c/hyperscope/wiki.pl?FrontPage) and at the Open­Augment Consortium (www.openaugment.org).

You can download OpenAugment from the latter site, but to run it you'll have to download a copy of Squeak—a multiplatform, open-source adaptation of Smalltalk-80, the language that did more than any other to codify object-oriented programming and extend object management to the graphical interface.

The Liberty Basic plug:

I had used Liberty BASIC (www.libertybasic.com) some years ago as a teaching tool when I was a counselor for the Boy Scouts' computing merit badge—so kill me. Liberty BASIC works in Windows and isn't as sophisticated as Microsoft Visual Basic, but it's easier to use. It's still a great way to produce custom Windows programs.

Carl Gundel produces Liberty Basic - the current version is done with VSE, but he's in the midst of a port to VisualWorks using Pollock.

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