Re: The State of the Nation [was: Re: Search a file question - Mac OS 9]
Re: The State of the Nation [was: Re: Search a file question - Mac OS 9]
- Subject: Re: The State of the Nation [was: Re: Search a file question - Mac OS 9]
- From: has <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 19 Sep 2002 13:53:32 +0100
Arthur J. Knapp wrote:
>
I am a JavaScripter.
Agh! Infamy!
>
If I had my way, all programming and scripting
>
would be in JavaScript.
Grief! And they call _me_ fascist!
;p
>
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 very little about PCs in general, never mind programming in particular,
that could be described as "intuitive". The mouse is a great example, there
are stories from the early days of people trying all manner of things to
try and get it to work: picking it up and pushing the little ball around
with their fingers - that sort of thing. _Not_ intuitive. Yet... give them
a ten second demonstration, and the new user grasps the principles of the
thing no problem. Mac users _love_ to talk about how "intuitive" the Mac
interface is, but again that's rubbish: what they really mean is that it's
"familiar". Watch a regular Mac user get frustrated on a Windows box, or
vice-versa; two very similar interfaces, yet the little differences will
drive them nuts because it's not quite what they're familiar with.
Incidentally, I quite like dot syntax myself for its visual "tightness" and
low level of noise (as opposed to "of" keywords all over the place; they
might be more "Englishy", but they're a chore to scan by eye). OTOH, I
still harbour a strong dislike for semi-colons as statement delimiters; for
me, it'll always be the familiar return, plus a continuation character for
when I do want to run a statement over multiple lines (which is much less
often than I want to delimit statements). But I wouldn't kid myself that
_any_ form of syntax here is going to make the underlying mechanics
"intuitive" to someone who doesn't _already_ understand them.
--
>
However, most AppleScripters are, well, AppleScripters.
I doubt anyone else could put it better. We are... what we are.;)
>
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.
[IMHO, Apple's days as the great innovator are long past, but let's not
wail and gnash teeth about this. Instead, see it as an ideal opportunity
for somebody else to step in and create the Next Great and/or Insane Thing.
And if nobody else is exploiting that opportunity then that's hardly
Apple's fault.]
--
>
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?
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.
Go look at a Python distro or something: the great majority of language
extensions there aren't arcane C-based plugins with some weird proprietary
interface and peculiar syntax, they're *native* [Python] code. There'll
always be some areas where you need to drop into a lower-level language,
either for speed or to get at bits of the system your scripting language
can't reach, but these other scripting languages achieve a remarkable
amount purely through exploiting what they've already got.
IMO there's a sort of "learned helplessness" amongst AppleScripters. We sit
around wringing our hands because our favourite osaxen have gone west with
the advent of OS X. Well, too bad; deal with it already. Okay, there's few
folk here who have CS or professional programming backgrounds; who are
experts in algorithms, data structures, and all that pesky 'real
programming stuff' that AppleScripters shouldn't have to know about. Even
so, I can't believe we're all _that_ helpless. Besides, AS _does_ have one
great talent: the ability to exploit what _others_ have got. So even if
we're not rolling our own components, we should at least be making every
effort to draw on others' in a more productive fashion than "Y'all Should
Go Learn Unix Then". So can somebody please tell me why it isn't happening,
because I'm damned if I know. :|
>
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?
>
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 have been using the AppleScript language now for around 6 years.
>
I have a special fondness for it, and so long as someone is supporting
>
it, I will continue to make use of it, but my patience has worn thin.
Well, my patience is non-existent, but I don't yet have the skills to take
up Obj-C and write my own damned scripting language instead;p. Thus, in the
absence of that option, my position is increasingly that of "put up or shut
up."i.e. There's plenty we can't do on our own, but a fair bit that we
could, so why not at least try to do some of it for ourselves (while we're
waiting for Apple to roll around to it, or whatever)?
>
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. This whole source code, primitive object types
and simple-flow-control paradigm is, I think, profoundly ill-suited to the
task of empowering "the rest of us" to make our machines do what we want in
the ways that we want. And sooner or later the whole lot needs to go in the
can and make room for whatever revolutionary new systems will replace it.
But I don't think Apple will be that company, and, frankly, as long as they
build products that work and ship when they're supposed to then I'll be
satisfied at their contribution.
/2c
has
--
http://www.barple.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk -- The Little Page of AppleScripts
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