Re: Convert first char to lower case [kind of OT]
Re: Convert first char to lower case [kind of OT]
- Subject: Re: Convert first char to lower case [kind of OT]
- From: Helmut Fuchs <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 13:46:31 +0100
At 11:50 Uhr +0000 09.01.2002, has wrote:
Actually, this is only true for MacRoman (the default set). If you're using
other character sets then it may be different: only characters below ASCII
number 128 are constant - above that it varies from set to set. For
example, Turkish has a dozen extra accented characters on top of what's
already there. Other sets may replace MacRoman's existing accented
characters with something completely different.
Hmm. I know I will again receive hostile eMails for bashing Apple yet again.
Following this discussion about upper- and lowercasing letters made
me feel a kind of helpless anger. So please excuse the following
blurb.
I wonder why everybody has to reinvent tiny little wheels over and
over again if the solution could be VERY simple and could save as all
a lot of (wasted) time and money, if AppleScript was at least a _bit_
more feature complete...
It's ALL already in the MacOS. And AppleScript even has some
knowledge about the different worldwide character encodings built in,
by means of "styled text" (and has had it for YEARS). Thousands of
hours of engineering and research have been spent in MacOS'
international capabilites - but they are inaccessible for
AppleScripters (without third-party additions).
It's incredibly absurd to have to care about how to capitalize
Icelandic accented characters if one doesn't have the slightest idea
of Icelandic. Wasn't that the reason that MacOS was so superior to
other platforms for years? That it could deal with those issues
without you having to know about it?
The most curious thing for me is, that AppleScript is intended to
shield the developer from implementation details by using a flexible
object model, that enables us to express ourselves in "characters",
"words" and "paragraphs". But for simple things like international
number formatting or upper/lowercasing we have to write code that
goes down to sub-system levels and re-solve problems that have been
solved years ago in Cupertino. Isn't that crazy?
I know that the ideas behind AppleScript are great. Else there would
be no reason to use it, despite its shortcomings. But still I feel
that it's a constant source of annoyance that Apple obviously doesn't
care to improve it in a structured and comprehensible way. Maybe that
has to do something with "reality distortion fields"...
Regards,
Helmut