Re: scripting on macs in general
Re: scripting on macs in general
- Subject: Re: scripting on macs in general
- From: Doug McNutt <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 14:41:17 -0600
At 10:09 -0500 7/15/02, Ron Bishop and Ian Bruce wrote:
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(IB) I am new to applescript but have done software for a few decades
That is probably the biggest drawback to learning AppleScript. O'Reiley's "AppleScript in a Nutshell" does a fairly good job of translating all the strange new words into the jargon you have come to understand. Arrays and hashes exist in AppleScript but they have other names.
>
(IB) Are the interfaces to
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(IB) Java, etc. adequate to do all the things that one can do in AS?
The subject is Apples OSA - Open Scripting Architecture. A reserved yes is the answer. One big reason for AppleScript is that producers of commercial software tend, at least in a small way, to support it. It is becoming a requirement in the sales world. About the only way to get information on the scriptability of an application is to try opening its dictionary with the AppleScript editor. A very few applications are actually recordable in AppleScript.
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(RB) I don't see AppleScript panned on this list:)
If it wasn't for this list and the ability to search its archives AppleScript would be impossible to learn. The official documentation simply stinks.
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(RB) I find AppleScript very easy to move/manipulate data through various applications. The syntax is
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no more difficult than talking to someone from the East Coast:) Maybe slightly easier than
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understanding someone from Texas:)
English it ain't. Perhaps it's that I hail from the right coast rather than the left coast. After you get something working you can go back and add articles and possessives to make code sound like poetry but you're fooling yourself if you think natural English makes programming easier.
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(RB) You don't need to be a programmer.
You had better be familiar with the difference between an alias (resource), a filespec (structure), and a pathname (string). Application dictionaries think nothing about telling you that "some properties are inherited from. . ." Only programmers understand stuff like that. This list is fully populated with questions from non-programmers who are confused. The good thing is that they elicit compassionate answers. What's not so clear is whether the answers are ever employed to create AppleScripts that do useful work.
With a UNIX based operating system there are other scripting options. Shell scripts, perl, python and, soon to come, parrot. In OS7-9 there is MacPerl and Apple's MPW which has a well developed scripting language and is free. Userland Frontier is another option. Most allow simple AppleScripts to be executed from within running code. As a programmer with decades of experience Ian should at least experiment with them.
--
Applescript syntax is like English spelling:
Roughly, but not thoroughly, thought through.
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