Re: Push for AppleScript in OS X
Re: Push for AppleScript in OS X
- Subject: Re: Push for AppleScript in OS X
- From: email@hidden
- Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2001 18:27:36 EST
I have been hearing such conflicting messages about the state of AS in X that
I'm starting to get really scared. On the one hand I'm hearing that
Applescript is being tightly integrated into the core of the OS, that the
Unix command line can be controlled by Applescript, etc. On the other hand I
read messages like Mark's, and Cris in private communication, and see the
horrible state of AS in the Public Beta (Finder not recordable, no CGI
support), and I wonder if I shouldn't just chuck it and learn Perl. 90% of
what I need is CGI support, text manipulation, and read/write to files on
disk. If this isn't present and rock solid on March 24, I'm seriously
considering bailing out, and I don't want to. I have too many thousands of
hours invested.
Attention Steve Jobs! Applescript is the soul of the Mac as far as I am
concerned. Nurture it! A paying customer has spoken!
Jeff Baumann
email@hidden
www.linkedresources.com
Comparing MHz between the G4 and Pentium is like comparing the popular vote
between Bush and Gore; it's interesting, but it isn't what matters.
In a message dated 2/2/01 4:41:19 PM, Mark Alldritt wrote:
>
This issue occupied much of our time during a panel discussion I was
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involved with at Macworld.
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The issue at hand is actually quite serious. While its true that the
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AppleScript language its self is well positioned in MacOS X, scriptability
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in MacOS X as a whole is in a terrible state. During Macworld it became
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very clear that with the initial release of MacOS X we are not going to
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enjoy anywhere near the level of scriptability in the core OS (Desktop,
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Dock, Preferences, Networking, Printing) that we enjoy today with MacOS 9.
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It has taken several years for Sal and the crew to get MacOS 9 to the point
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it is now. My great fear is that its going to take 1-2 years to get all the
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infrastructure back under MacOS X.
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Additionally, all of Apple's recent consumer applications (iTumes, iMovie,
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Final Cut Pro, etc.) are *not* scriptable. I see this as a very bad
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precedent.
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So, to conclude, its not the language that's at risk, but support for
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scripting in the OS that's the problem. If scripting in MacOS X matters to
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you or your organization, you must make this clear in a respectful way to
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Apple. If we are not making our needs clear to Apple, they may choose not
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to do this work in favor of some other feature enhancement.
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>
Cheers
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-Mark
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>
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