RE: What's the biggest barrier to wider AS adoption?
RE: What's the biggest barrier to wider AS adoption?
- Subject: RE: What's the biggest barrier to wider AS adoption?
- From: email@hidden
- Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 19:44:12 EDT
>
What I'm wondering is, AppleScript is really cool, and it seems like
>
it's not nearly as widely used as it could be. Why do you think that
>
is?
Well, here's my 2 cents:
("People" is being defined as the general user--the vast majority of Mac
users. That is, not "too" savvy at the abstract, but somewhat competent with
the apps that are used day to day. Probably understands how to use the
Finder's 'folders'. Probabaly only uses the menus instead of key shortcuts.
In other words, not a power user. Just a user.)
People just don't want to write scripts and most couldn't if they had to.
I've created many scripts for the various places that I have worked. Compared
to most of the stuff we see here on the list, my scripts are not terribly
complicated. For example, my latest simply asks the user a few questions so
it can construct an appropriate search string, then searches a text file for
that string and displays the resulting look-up value. Simple.
Yet the people I work with are amazed at the magic I've created. They
wouldn't know where to start if they were forced to try and write that on
their own. If they did try they wouldn't have the patience to follow-through.
If they got that far, well, they wouldn't. They'd never even crack open the
first PDF doc. Way over their heads, simple as it may be. But...
They love to use the tools that I've built for them and are constantly
suggesting new ones for me to write, completely oblivious to whether it's a
difficult or easy suggestion (fair enough). So people do like to use the
RESULTS that AS can offer, but have no interest in generating their own tools.
From their perspective, an AppleScript is just more software. They don't even
understand the distinction between programming and scripting. In fact, most
people I've encountered who use Macs (I'm in graphics/prepress, so I've met a
lot of supposed sophisticated Mac users) have 'heard' of AppleScript, but
don't know what it is.
When you get right down to it, scripting on any significant level is (at
least) somewhat complicated and you can only dumb it down just so much before
it loses functionality. For example, recordability of an app is great and can
allow a total non-scripter to rearrange items on his desktop with AS. But it
will never generate an if-then loop for you. How far can you really go with
that?
At the risk of babbling all night, I'll just stop here!
Ken Fleisher
email@hidden