AppleScript Activism (was Re: Scripting Safari's Preferences window)
AppleScript Activism (was Re: Scripting Safari's Preferences window)
- Subject: AppleScript Activism (was Re: Scripting Safari's Preferences window)
- From: Gary Lists <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2003 15:57:29 -0400
On or about 7/16/03 2:30 PM, Michael Terry wrote:
>
> On 7/16/03 8:35 AM, "Nigel Smith" <email@hidden> wrote:
>
> But I'm afraid that the lack of something as simple as an AppleScript way to
>
> get the short or long name of the current user, and Apple's recommendation
>
> to use 'do shell script "whoami"', speaks volumes.
>
No, it doesn't. It doesn't speak volumes. I wonder if this kind of reasoning
>
is really activism masked as true belief? Like, maybe if I claim that
>
AppleScript is dead if Apple doesn't implement my pet peeve, that'll light a
>
fire under them.
Well, Mike. One person's request for some feature or other could hardly
"light a fire under" a fits and starts company like Apple. (Who still has
me solidly in their camp, sitting in front of my 9th Mac and looking at
numbers 7 and 8.)
Perhaps both "speaks volumes" and "activism masked as true belief" are both
a tad histrionic, give or take. ;)
Some Thoughts from a Guy Who Would Rather Eat a Macintosh than Use
Windows...
I get to meet lots of educators and NGO groups who would like to prefer
Macintosh to the alternative. They are both desperate and resolute, they are
price conscious, they are, to me, visionary in their desire of ways to
deploy computing technology and they are the future-makers. I respect them,
and their concerns, very much. It's not only about cool lab tools for 6th
graders, or great math software for 10th graders. It's about all that _and_
ways to reduce management costs, integrate web publishing into management
tasks, serve local networks and expand the potential through AppleScript.
But, they so often balk when it comes to procurement. Why? They rely on
long-term vision (because they have to, at the political and budgetary
level) and on extensibility.
>
If you really think AppleScript is on the way out, then give the clear,
>
inarguable signal you expect to see from Apple that will prove your fears
>
right. Will Apple stop improving, for example, iTune's, Mail, and the
>
Finder's dictionary? Will Apple suddenly drop AS support in Xcode? Will
>
Apple stop developing the AS Cocoa frameworks? Will Apple make a public
>
announcement that they are no longer supporting AppleScript altogether?
One could argue (and many have, both here and elsewhere) that not providing
a dictionary in many new iApps is just such a semaphore as you advise us to
be on the lookout for. Are those arguers correct? Do deeds speak louder
than words in a keynote? One must admit that such significant absences has
the potential to send the wrong signal to a consuming public and, more
importantly, to a developing public.
The oft-cited iTunes is, afterall, iOpportunism and not iVision. It is
iOpportunism that has business merit, mind you, and that can be nothing but
iGood for the Apple bottom-line, but it is not one of the killer apps that
the business, education and non-profit worlds need to manage their work
flow. AppleScript is just that. Put it front and center, every time, all
the time.
>
The various pieces that make up Apple's aggregate support of AppleScript can
>
never measure up to some perfect standard that some folks seem to have, but
>
that doesn't mean AS is on the wane.
>
>
Mike
I think that you've actually summed up the sketchy state of affairs quite
nicely with "The various pieces that make up Apple's aggregate support".
This is, again, evidence of a pop-culture approach to prioritization. After
all, it is called _Apple_Script...and it should be given the central place
in the OS that it has long deserved.
Evidence the long-standing practice of distributing AppleScript in the Apple
Extras folder of the OS install. That practice did finally end in the days
of OS9-something, and even merited an entry (from memory) of something like
"AppleScript is finally moved from the Apple Extras folder" in the release
notes of 9.x. (I am sure I could dig out the exact phrase.) I found that
quite telling, and a worthy shift in corporate view and public recognition.
The "extra" mentality is not the kind of push-marketing of a technology that
gives the user community an indication that this is core, that this is
power, that this is flexibility, that this is serious management strength.
When you only have enough money to either out-source the production of cheap
plastic Strawberry colored cases and keyboards that don't last or really
tweak what's under the hood, you can see the result. Strawberry cases and
cheap keyboards. They sold faster than they could be cooled. Good?
Probably. Long-term important? Hardly.
From a change-management point of view, Apple has long suffered from the CEO
as rock star mentality, when the real stars are the folks who pour their
knowledge -- and love -- into things like AppleScript and HyperCard and
other revolutionary products that somehow defy categorization in their shiny
brilliance. Bill Atkinson himself said that HC was poised to _be_ a web
killer-app but the vision was missing, the resources were withdrawn and the
opportunity was missed. He claimed some responsibility in not seeing
stack-to-stack-on-other-machines early enough, but I find it one of the most
tragic and fascinating stories in Apple's history.
Apple Inc. seems to be forever stuck in the 5% market share realm (which can
keep Steve in fancy digs until the cows come home) but which leaves the
ground troops exposed and vulnerable to the less moral and way less cool
encroachment of the Enemy.
All that being said: You can have my Mac when you pry it from my cold dead
fingers.
--
Gary
MacOS 9.1 / "9 is Fine"
...but I am coming to believe that OSX may be the single most effective
strategic measure taken in years...if Apple can knife the pe(a)rl from the
shell. Everyone does not need to write silly strings of chicken scratch on a
command line. We should be evolving the other way, lest we end up with
Strawberry VAX.
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