Re: The State of the Nation
Re: The State of the Nation
- Subject: Re: The State of the Nation
- From: has <email@hidden>
- Date: Fri, 20 Sep 2002 18:38:18 +0100
Arthur J. Knapp wrote:
>
>> If I had my way, all programming and scripting
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>> would be in JavaScript.
>
>
> Grief! And they call _me_ fascist!
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> ;p
>
>
Perhaps I should rephrase: If I had my way, I would be able to script
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in JavaScript all the time, while everyone else would be able to script
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in whatever they want to script in all the time.
In that case I want to script in Hawaii.
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>> It is a world of dots and semi-colons that
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>> is natural and intuative to me.
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>
>
> Ah, be _very_ careful here. There is a _huge_ difference between what is
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> "natural and intuitive" and what is "easily learned" or "familiar". ...
>
>
There is also a difference between what is natural and intuitive "to me",
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and what is natural and intuitive "to others", which is the point I was
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trying to make.
While the point I was trying to make was that the words "natural" and
"intuitive" are two of the most overworked and inappropriately-used words
in discussions such as these. :)
But words like "simple", "logical", "consistent"; yeah, you'd be on solid
ground with those. (Descriptors that poor AppleScript can only dream
about...;)
>
>> AppleScript is not just a *means* of scripting, it is also a *way*
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>> of scripting, an experiment in user-friendly computing, (something
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>> 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
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> company all but went down the tubes in the '90s, so I can quite understand
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> 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
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much danger as the media tried to make it sound like. With almost the
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entire publishing industry behind them, the Macintosh was never on it's
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way out the door. I think the NeXt people just used the media scare to
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implement their own agenda onto the direction of Macintosh developement,
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but now that I've let their secret plans out to the world, I will no
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doubt be hunted down and forced to learn Object-C. ;-)
The Black PoloShirts are gathering outside your door as you speak. Bye-bye.
<knapp mk2>Mac is Great. Steve Jobs is God. AppleScript is t... error -1703
Stack Overflow ...anguage Ever.</knapp mk2>
;)
>
> Seems to me the best improvement would be to make it **easier for ASers to
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> help themselves**, instead of us all sitting around bemoaning the fact that
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> the AS team hasn't added desired features "A,B,C,D,...XX,YY,ZZ" [...]
>
>
You are contradicting yourself. The sorts of things that the more
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advanced users bemoan the lack of ARE the very things that would allow
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us to create useful libraries to "fill in the gaps".
Do you think?
We don't even have a standard, basic find-and-replace, never mind regexeps,
XML parsers, etc, etc. These sorts of things could, and should, be written
in AppleScript, but right now I can't vouch for what the speed would be.
List operations? Could be done in AS; or you could implement your own data
types if you preferred to. Sorts? AppleScript. Filters? AppleScript. Math
functions? AppleScript. Fancy schmancy data structures? AppleScript.
There should be a deliberate move _towards_ doing this sort of stuff in AS,
_not_ in C. If the language is too slow, focus on speeding it up: you'll
never get ahead if you try to implement every new feature in C, but you
might if you can enable this growth to occur at the higher level. C-based
extensions should be the final fallback, not the first port of call. Yes,
there's plenty of things that need more basic language support before they
can happen. But there's also _lots_ of stuff that _could_ be entirely
achievable if the language would simply clean up its existing act.
>
>> If Apple wants their grand experiment in English-like programming to
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>> continue, they are going to have to vastly improve the *power* of the
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>> language.
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>
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> You can have a big, complex language with lots of proprietary extensions
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> and wonky bits, or you can have a small, tight, flexible language that can
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> be used to extend itself. Guess which I want to see?
>
>
Ditto. Currently, AppleScript IS both small and tight, but flexible,
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(from a native-code point of view), it is not.
Could be much tighter I suspect. As for flexibility, that's a toughie. For
example, not enough hooks into lower-level services as you say. Not that
Joe ASer should have to deal with that sort of nonsense directly, but if
others can't get in to connect the sort of functionality that Joe would
like to use then it's a problem. Paradox: you don't want to make the
language "complicated" (else Cal will get you;), but if extending it is
going to be full of lumps then it's not going to grow smoothly.
>
>> The initial philosophy was that each application would provide
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>> the *tools* to do what the user wanted, but this has been clearly shown
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>> to not be enough. We need AS to do more on it's own.
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>
> 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,
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[...] They do not, (and should not), try to assist in algorithmic
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development of the language.
Absolutely. It risks being a crutch, a get-out clause for weaknesses in the
language itself.
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>> [...] a new *powerful* AppleScript [...]
>
>
> I've relatively little interest in seeing a "new AppleScript"; I'd rather
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> they just fix up the old one and position it so that users can better
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> extend it for themselves. ...
>
>
But a fixed up AppleScript that was more easily extendable WOULD be a
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new *powerful* AppleScript. :)
Ah, in that case my definition of "new" was different to yours: mine's more
like The Jetsons, only whizzier. I'll try to tone down my ambitions and
expectations in that case to something a little more modest/realistic. ;)
Cheers,
has
--
http://www.barple.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk -- The Little Page of AppleScripts
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