Re: The State of the Nation
Re: The State of the Nation
- Subject: Re: The State of the Nation
- From: "Arthur J. Knapp" <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 19 Sep 2002 12:35:01 -0400
>
Date: Thu, 19 Sep 2002 13:53:32 +0100
>
From: has <email@hidden>
>
Subject: Re: The State of the Nation [was: Re: Search a file question -
>
Arthur J. Knapp wrote:
>
> If I had my way, all programming and scripting
>
> would be in JavaScript.
>
Grief! And they call _me_ fascist!
>
;p
Perhaps I should rephrase: If I had my way, I would be able to script
in JavaScript all the time, while everyone else would be able to script
in whatever they want to script in all the time.
;-)
>
> It is a world of dots and semi-colons that
>
> is natural and intuative to me.
>
>
Ah, be _very_ careful here. There is a _huge_ difference between what is
>
"natural and intuitive" and what is "easily learned" or "familiar". ...
There is also a difference between what is natural and intuitive "to me",
and what is natural and intuitive "to others", which is the point I was
trying to make.
>
> However, most AppleScripters are, well, AppleScripters.
>
I doubt anyone else could put it better. We are... what we are.;)
Well, I am, anyway. ;-)
>
> AppleScript is not just a *means* of scripting, it is also a *way*
>
> of scripting, an experiment in user-friendly computing, (something
>
> that Apple used to actually care about in it's pre-Unix box days).
>
And when they still had an R&D budget for such things. Of course, the
>
company all but went down the tubes in the '90s, so I can quite understand
>
the need to become much more conservative in what their plans and actions.
But the company didn't go down the tubes, in fact, it was NEVER in as
much danger as the media tried to make it sound like. With almost the
entire publishing industry behind them, the Macintosh was never on it's
way out the door. I think the NeXt people just used the media scare to
implement their own agenda onto the direction of Macintosh developement,
but now that I've let their secret plans out to the world, I will no
doubt be hunted down and forced to learn Object-C. ;-)
>
> The fact that other languages are more powerful should be a wake up
>
> call to the AppleScript development team. Either the AppleScript
>
> experiment should be continued by making vast improvements to the
>
> language
>
Such as?
We who regularly inhabit this list all know what sort of improvements are
needed: native, (read: fast), commands for manipulating arrays, strings,
advanced math, perhaps some tool-box calls, etc. The things that most every
other scripting language offers as a basic minimum of functionality.
>
Seems to me the best improvement would be to make it **easier for ASers to
>
help themselves**, instead of us all sitting around bemoaning the fact that
>
the AS team hasn't added desired features "A,B,C,D,...XX,YY,ZZ" this week
>
just because we want them to. Knock the bugs and stupid System7-era
>
limitations out and crank the speed up. Oh, and put in a decent modules
>
system ASAP. Then tell the users to go fix the feature gaps themselves
>
instead of moaning about it.
You are contradicting yourself. The sorts of things that the more
advanced users bemoan the lack of ARE the very things that would allow
us to create useful libraries to "fill in the gaps".
>
> If Apple wants their grand experiment in English-like programming to
>
> continue, they are going to have to vastly improve the *power* of the
>
> language.
>
>
You can have a big, complex language with lots of proprietary extensions
>
and wonky bits, or you can have a small, tight, flexible language that can
>
be used to extend itself. Guess which I want to see?
Ditto. Currently, AppleScript IS both small and tight, but flexible,
(from a native-code point of view), it is not.
>
> The initial philosophy was that each application would provide
>
> the *tools* to do what the user wanted, but this has been clearly shown
>
> to not be enough. We need AS to do more on it's own.
>
YES! (I'm soooo glad I'm not the only one thinks this.:)
I would like to point out that I am not knocking application scripting,
obviously, that is the whole point of AS in the first place. Great apps
like Quark took AppleScript to heart, and have made all of ours lives
easier. But the primary concern of the application script-developers is
to provide a good object model and intelligent commands for getting and
setting data. They do not, (and should not), try to assist in algorithmic
development of the language.
>
> After an intitial test run, I decided that I didn't really care for
>
> OS X, but I'll tell you what: a new *powerful* AppleScript, with native
>
> string, list, and numeric commands comparable to those of other scripting
>
> languages, would be the only incentive I would need to become an OS X
>
> convert.
>
I've relatively little interest in seeing a "new AppleScript"; I'd rather
>
they just fix up the old one and position it so that users can better
>
extend it for themselves. ...
But a fixed up AppleScript that was more easily extendable WOULD be a
new *powerful* AppleScript. :)
{ Arthur J. Knapp, of <
http://www.STELLARViSIONs.com>
a r t h u r @ s t e l l a r v i s i o n s . c o m
}
_______________________________________________
applescript-users mailing list | email@hidden
Help/Unsubscribe/Archives:
http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/applescript-users
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.