Re: AppleScript's script size limit
Re: AppleScript's script size limit
- Subject: Re: AppleScript's script size limit
- From: email@hidden (Michael Sullivan)
- Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2002 11:54:26 -0400
- Organization: Society for the Incurably Pompous
email@hidden (david) wrote:
>
On Sunday, October 20, 2002, at 02:28 PM, Paul Berkowitz wrote:
>
> OS 10.2.1, AS 1.9
>
...Snip
>
> But it seems to me that the limit I once hit in AS 1.3.7 was much
>
> higher than that. Is the AppleScript team even aware of this 140K limit,
>
> or do they do all their testing in Script Editor? Is this limit
>
> something essential, built in, or could it be expanded?
>
isn't that why AppleScript Studio was developed?
>
AppleScript Studio is a powerful application design tool that combines
>
features from AppleScript, Project Builder, Interface Builder, and the
>
Cocoa application framework. You can write a complete application using
>
AppleScript and design your own user interface. AppleScript Studio also
>
supports Cocoa, Java, and Objective C.
>
Prehaps we are trying to expand AppleScript into a programming language
>
to write hundreds of lines of code - i don't think that was the reason
>
it was developed.
The fact is, Applescript is a good language. I frankly prefer writing
in it to writing in algol-descendant languages by a fair bit. I haven't
played with Obj-C and Cocoa, but in general, I've become a real sucker
for strong dynamic typing. If the AS implementation got around some of
these "We never intended it to be a 'real' programming language" kinks,
I think it would be a better language than a lot of what's out there
right now.
IMO, the basic design of the language is very sound. It's object
oriented all the way down. When you get your head around it's
abstraction paradigm it's very strong. While I'd rather have a lisp, I
prefer it to most of what people are programming with today (haven't
learned Python yet, maybe I'd like it as well).
Given the interface and foreign function hooks we now have in
Applescript Studio -- if everything worked as advertised as the system
scaled, if we didn't have so many schlemiel the painter algorithms
underneath, and, I'd probably be willing to use it for any programming
task that did not require object code-compiled speed.
That means reimplenting, while worrying about things like a 140k script
size limit. One thing that becomes obvious to anyone who does a lot of
scripting is that artificial limitations on a language because it is a
"scripting language" always come back to bite you. The ideal scripting
system is one that gives you as much of the flexibility of "real"
programming as possible. With the advent of systems that can do
run-time dynamic typing fast enough for most purposes, there's no reason
you can't have all the power of a "real" language in something that's
fairly easy to learn and work with on a simple level.
Personally, I think apple should either try to fix all the stuff that's
keeping Applescript from being a "real" language (which has nothing to
do with the basic design, and everything to do with implementation
limitations and too small a standard (read: fast) function library), or
they should drop it, and focus their efforts on taking a well developed
existing language and making it the center of OSA development. Common
Lisp would be a perfect choice but probably not sufficiently 'hip'.
Heck apple knows good language (probably why the basic design of AS is
so good). It was a bunch of apple folks who started Dylan, a lisp
variant with infix syntax that would make a *beautiful* scripting
language.
Failing that, Python or Perl wouldn't be too bad. I'd prefer a 'real'
applescript to either of those though. If the OSA Python implementation
of a scripter who shall remain nameless gets to be ready for prime time
and AS isn't where it should be by then, I'll be taking a hard look at
switching.
Michael
--
Michael Sullivan
Business Card Express of CT Thermographers to the Trade
Cheshire, CT email@hidden
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