Re: History of Scripting Terms (was Re: Attachability)
Re: History of Scripting Terms (was Re: Attachability)
- Subject: Re: History of Scripting Terms (was Re: Attachability)
- From: Peter Fine <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 07 Feb 2001 17:58:06 -0500
on 2/6/01 11:17 AM, Leonard Rosenthol at email@hidden wrote:
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As one of the people who helped defined the original terms for
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"levels" of scripting, I guess I should put my two cents in.
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For anyone keeping historical records, feel free to note that the
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first formal discussions about defining types/level of scriptability
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took place at a pre-WWDC "coding kitchen" at Pajaro Dunes (CA) in May
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of 1992. Among those present (that I remember) were myself
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(Aladdin), Don Brown (CE Software), xxx (Word Perfect), Brandon
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McCarthy (Claris/FileMaker), xxx (Shana) and some key Apple people
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including Mark Thomas (Evangelist) and Don Dehnman ("Father of
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AppleScript").
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At the time, we defined four levels of "scriptability" that any given
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software product could achieve.
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* Scriptable - supported any Apple events and included an 'aete'.
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Since this was BEFORE the Apple Event Object Model (AEOM) existed, we
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weren't concerned with "quality" of implementation - just that they
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had something!
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* Recordable - allowed the user to record the events as they took
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place so they could be played back.
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* Attachable - provided a way for the user to run scripts from "user
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interface elements" in the application. At the time, we were
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thinking more along the lines of buttons/fields in a database or form
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processor, cells in a spreadsheet or folders in the Finder. The idea
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of attaching to menus and "Script" menus came later - most likely as
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a response to Jens' Script Menu and my OSA Menu.
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* Tickerability - allowed the user to override, replace or add
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functionality to an application through scripting. This is what
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products like Style and Script Debugger do by allowing users to
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install handlers that can modify standard application behavior.
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Whether these terms are still valid and/or accurate, and should still
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be used as is or with modification is a discussion that comes up
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every few months. I simply offer the above as a historical
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perspective and a starting point for those having the discussion
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today with respect to what we "pioneers" believed almost 10 years ago
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(wow!).
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Attachable has been used rather consistently in Apple publications to mean
something broader than Leonard sets forth. Tinkerable, thank God, has never
been used by Apple and seems to have been know only to the Innermost of the
Innermost.
For current use, the choice seems to be between using "attachable" in a
broad sense or splitting the subject matter into "attach" = "has a Scripts
menu" and "embeddable" = "everything else".
I know they're just words, but that's how we communicate!
Peter