AS adoption barriers [very, very long]
AS adoption barriers [very, very long]
- Subject: AS adoption barriers [very, very long]
- From: "AppleScripter" <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 13:50:18 -0500
I didn't really want to get into all this because I think I have beaten my
head against a brick wall trying to talk to people about AppleScript. In a
way, I am tired of talking about its benefits and detriments. However,
there are just some things that I can't let slip by.
Assertion: Documentation is poor.
Response: I agree that, in some aspects of the documentation, there is
ambiguity and confusion. Let me say, however, that I do not know of any
language that has anythign like the ASLG with concrete syntax examples and a
complete listing of the commands, objects and constants in an easy to read
and searchable document. Yes, I am aware of perldoc and the like but really
how confusing are they? In my opinion, they are very confusing. The
documentation never steered me wrong and I can't agree with anyone when they
say that they looked at ASLG and couldn't figure out how to do something.
Assertion: English-like syntax is a misnomer.
Response: There have been a few things that seemed awkward to me (like tell
write where to start writing before telling it what to write) but in
general, it seems obvious to me in a lot of cases, the majority actually.
And frankly the flow of data inside a script makes sense to me. Getting the
result of something rather that making a variable equal to a command (which
actually gives you the output of that command) is just how you would do it
in real life. Can you go pick up the book from Fred and then tell me what
it looks like and what Fred said about it? That makes sense to me. It is
English-like but it isn't the best at incorporating dialect and we all
suffer from colloquial as well as geographical syntactical differences.
Hell, I don't know if you *could* completely eliminate that problem. But
it's a lot better than $tempVar =~ s/ain't/isn't/ge; Someone mentioned the
scripting host on Windows. I have played with it and I can't see the power
(maybe that's me) simply because it is abstruse and cumbersome. I don't
think the accessibility is there for the average Windows user like it could
be in Macs (if Apple promoted it enough).
Assertion: Script Editor sucks
Response: I don't use anything but SE and I have written some pretty good
scripts. I will every so often use Smile whenever my script has gotten
above 32K (and yes I think it is a silly limit) but even that is rare now
that I have become as fanatic as Arthur about golfing my scripts. I hear a
lot about Script Debugger and FaceSpan and the like and I just don't have
the inclination to shell out what is a preposterous amount of money (in my
opinion) for somethign to replace SE which does just fine for me. I flow my
variables all the time. I often cause my scripts to pseudo-step through
code. I invariably hit apple-e and apple-l before I even start scripting.
I can't sing SE's praisies enough except to say that I wish it were itself
scriptable. I run a fairly content heavy site using applescript and I used
SE exclusively as I do for everything. When I can't get something done
using SE, I will buy the other programs until then I just don't see the
need. I think a lot of people would be in the same boat if they thought
about it for a minute.
Assertion: AppleScript is harder than other languages
Repsonse: I think whoever says this isn't thinking clearly. Before I got
into computers, I wrote scripts, I worked in banking, I did a myriad other
things, non of which brought me in touch with computers (from a developer
standpoint). I had never scripted anything, I had never even considered the
intricacies of an OS. But I got a jobn when I was down on my luck working
with Macs (as a bench tech) and I have never looked back. I learned
AppleScript on a whim. I taught myself everything I know with the help of a
lot of good people (Bill Cheeseman and Bill Briggs chief among them) and
great web resources (a lot of which are no longer around for some reason).
Did I do it in a weekend? No. Did I start out automating workflow? No.
But I learned it and I think I learned it well. Now then, after I had
learned AppleScript I started with JavaScript, then Perl, then Java, then C.
I learned everything other language precisely because I learned AppleScript
and I had a solid foundation in programming from AppleScript. Everything
being an obvious object in AppleScript made understanding Perl's objects
easier. There is no doubt in my mind that AppleScript is the best first
language to learn, hands down.
I'll leave it at one more short thing. The other biggest factor to AS not
being more widely adopted is you and me, folks. We don't have near the
AppleScript community that other languages do. I wanted to get an
AppleScript conference started (much like YAPC) but every time I asked
someone they asked me why. Why? Because without a community of passionate
advocates meeting together and exchanging ideas beyond the one or two
paragraphs on this wonderful list, we will be doomed as a community to
constantly re-inventing wheels, bumping up against the same hurdles to AS's
use in the marketplace. You think 1,000 or 2,000 poeple meeting every year
doesn't make the average Mac user take notice of AppleScript? It does for
Perl, and Python and all the other languages with conventions, contests and
the like. Since OSX has come along and made the other languages more
accessible to the Mac community, we should be in battle mode, out-stripping
and outdoing our nearest competitors. Everyone has made some good points
and hopefully Apple will prick up their ears and take notice. We need some
help from Apple, to be sure, but we can do a lot of it ourselves. It was
why I started AppleMods. It was why I wrote this whole thing.
Sincerely,
Greg Strange