Comment by follower
2 years ago
> empowered people to make lots of small useful utilities
Specifically related to this aspect, currently the closest thing I'm aware of that comes to mind is the Godot "game" engine: https://godotengine.org
While it's not an exact match for Hypercard in many aspects, three of the related areas where it is a particularly strong contender are:
* A small initial download size (<100MB) and short load/launch load time.
* Supports an "iterative"/hacky development process well--GDScript is very well suited to the initial "exploratory development stage" of "making something that works". (As GDScript itself evolves it's also getting better at being robust over time via recent additions such as gradual typing.)
* Godot's distribution/installation story is very strong--I would posit that it is light years ahead of any other ecosystem[0] in this area: Download the export templates (which are generic platform-specific binary executables) for the platforms you want to support and then export your project (which packages your project-specific code/resources for use with the executable)[1].
Currently, I would say the place where Godot is currently most lacking (somewhat surprisingly) in comparison to something like Hypercard or ("classic") Visual Basic is in relation to a lack of "drag and drop UI" creation. Godot has a quite powerful UI system (albeit at times... opaque) but the current UX for building the UI forces one to be very conscious of the scene's node tree rather than being able to just drag and drop widgets from a toolbar, or similar, onto a window.
(This UX is also an aspect that seems could be improved "relatively easily" via an Editor Plugin and maybe one day I'll get around to prototyping something for that particular rabbit hole. :) )
Obviously, it's not a perfect solution for numerous reasons I won't go into now but it's certainly my default choice for any GUI-based utilities these days--some of which I actually finish enough to "release". :D
[0] This aspect is where Python in particular falls down catastrophically.
[1] This also extends to being able to produce WASM exports for the web which opens a two-pronged distribution approach where people can initially use a web-based version of your utility and, if it's useful enough to them, they can also download an executable for local use.
One area general-purpose game engines tend to fall flat is HTML exports, which are particularly important for things like Game Jam entries or short-form art pieces that would be a hassle to download and install. Unity and Godot can both create web builds, but they tend to be dozens of megabytes, taking tens of seconds to load on a web page, and often simply crash on non-Chrome browsers. These aren't unsolvable problems, but they've consistently been a low priority, and in my opinion this is why neither engine has become a modern Flash equivalent.
Meanwhile, a baseline Decker web build weighs less than 400kb (which includes all the editing tools, if enabled), loads instantly, and will work fine on older releases of Firefox or Safari. Bitsy[1] is another example of a lightweight, simple game-making tool, and a great deal of its popularity comes from how easy it is to share and try out Bitsy games on sites like itch.io.
I guess my main point is there's tons of "room at the bottom" for lightweight development platforms.
[1] https://bitsy.org