TIDs ahoy (was Re: coercing a list)
TIDs ahoy (was Re: coercing a list)
- Subject: TIDs ahoy (was Re: coercing a list)
- From: George Mack <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2001 21:41:27 -0400
The always informative Scott Norton writes:
TIDs are powerful, but always smell like software trickery to me.
(Kind of like
my favorite APL one-liners.) Usually, scripters use them when trying to avoid
using a Scripting Addition command like Akua Sweet's "decompose" command or one
of the regular expressions commands. As if using a third-party osax was the
sign of moral decay, like having machine-sewn fabric in your Civil War
re-enactor uniform, or serving vinigrette salad dressing at a wine tasting. <<
Weeelll... I dunno about that.
It's two sides of the Occam's Razor/Less is More thing. I like to
keep things simple in my scripts but I also like to simplify the
system so that I'm not spending a lot of time checking versions and
compatibility. I don't have anything against OSAXen, but when
something works as well and as quickly as TIDs I don't feel panicked
without them either.
Maybe it's just me, but debugging Regular Expressions routines
somehow doesn't seem that much easier than the usual TID dance. (Or
maybe I need to explore the nooks and crannies of all those OSAXen in
my Scripting Additions folder.)
I will say that there is a flavor about TIDs that suggest that some
of the things we use them for weren't in the original Scope of
Service.
But there's something to be said for the TID route. It comes
with every AppleScript system -- which may not always be true for
OSAXen -- and though it seems a little bit of a "dialect" that other
systems don't use, once you're familiar with the structure, it isn't
much worse than an if/else/then structure. In my case, learning about
TIDs have enormously simplified the various loops in the scripts.
Well, just my 2 cents.
--
GEORGE MACK DESIGN - Scituate, MA 02066 - (781) 544-3880
Design-Illustration-Desktop Publishing-Miscellaneous Magic
"Think outside the box? I live there."