Re: processing time & stack overflow
Re: processing time & stack overflow
- Subject: Re: processing time & stack overflow
- From: Shane Stanley <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 14:08:09 +1000
On 30/8/01 1:21 PM +1000, Timothy Bates, email@hidden, wrote:
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Nope. I am saying "AS would make a fantastic screwdriver as well, if only it
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was faster". Solutions are impeded if one must move between languages. Many
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_many_ people are using AppleScript not merely to tell Photoshop to run a
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"do script", but to actually do work in AppleScript.
Oh, I would love to see it faster too, although it's not my top priority. I
just think the comparison with other languages is ill-made.
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I would venture to say that the great majority of posts to this list are
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from people trying to do work IN AppleScript: treating it like Hypertalk.
Do you really think so? I would have said "sizable minority" at best. Maybe
we're both seeing what we want to see, or what we're familiar with.
But for AppleScript scripters in general -- and this list is a small,
probably unrepresentative, minority -- I believe that's not the case by a
long, long shot.
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If Apple would revamp the compiler, then we would have a first class hammer
and
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an excellent screwdriver, all in one. No reason why not.
Except maybe priorities, economics, those sorts of mundane things...
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Then the people
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who attend this list could get their work done and convince their accountant
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to buy more Apple hardware.
Or perhaps buy less hardware, because their scripts run so fast they no
longer need to upgrade ;-)
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Also, it does not matter _why_ AppleScript was designed.
Well it does when you're making comparisons with other languages.
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What matters is
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what we all need now. Dozens of Scripters everyday turn to a different tool
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(or often a different platform) because AppleScript is too slow.
And thousands of them stick with it for jobs where it's the best, and
sometimes only, offering. The real question from Apple's POV is still where
the expenditure of resources earns the biggest reward.
Obviously, my view is that AppleScript is still underrated and
under-resourced. But given that, I think it even more important that the
dollars be spent where they're going to result in more bang for more people.
I'm not convinced that improved ability to handle complicated text
manipulations is top of the list, nice though it would be.
But if the demand is really so strong, then someone ought to write a fast,
highly scriptable FBA.
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I do not
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believe that "Apple: we never fix things so get used to it." is a successful
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business motto. "Apple: making the possible easy and the impossible
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possible" is a good business motto, and one which AppleScript could
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exemplify if it was faster and played more nicely with the web.
Again, I think AppleScript fits your second motto pretty well. Not in all
cases, but I think you're maybe missing the bigger picture.
--
Shane Stanley, email@hidden