Re: List sorting dilemma
Re: List sorting dilemma
- Subject: Re: List sorting dilemma
- From: has <email@hidden>
- Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 21:46:14 +0100
Michael Sullivan wrote:
>
Hands up everyone else who thinks the decision to make finder file
>
objects distinct from "file" and "alias" classes with no invisible
>
coercions tends to make scripting files in the finder an extraordinary
>
PITA.
It makes perfect sense for Finder objects to be distinct from AppleScript's
own file/alias classes. The two mechanical problems I see are:
1. the words 'file' and 'alias' are given different meanings depending on
context. Homonyms = bad.
2. lack of implicit coercions, as you say. Mind you, this is a common fault
throughout AS, and just patchily inconsistent enough to be dangerous.
If there's a third problem, it's that Finder scripting is not [imo] well
explained. Until you've grasped the basic principles it all makes precious
little sense. Oh, and it doesn't much help that many folks seem to have
trouble divorcing the filesystem concept from everything else[1]. But I've
been through this rant often enough before, and right now I'm not really in
the mood for another one.
I think there was something mentioned circa Developers Conference time
about AS under X.2 adding more file system operations to the language
itself. If so, I suspect this is might be more a case of giving users what
they want (dumbed down file manipulation) than what they really need (a
solid understanding of objects and object models [2]). I dunno though; I
guess we'll see.
has
[1] Not helped by AS either, which muddies the water further by providing
some filesystem functions itself. Hence the many happy hours of total
confusion caused by rubbish like 'tell app "Finder" to get info for
myFile'...
[2] Just because I loathe and despise terms like 'namespace', it doesn't
mean I think an understanding of the actual concepts is any less essential.
Heck, I don't even think it's that difficult, although the language and
tools could do an awful lot more to make this stuff easy for folks.
--
http://www.barple.connectfree.co.uk/ -- The Little Page of Beta AppleScripts
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