Flogging a dead horse
Flogging a dead horse
- Subject: Flogging a dead horse
- From: "Wallace, William" <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2003 11:32:14 -0600
I've been following the JD vs. cricket and the mutant Applescript syntax
threads with great interest. Speaking as a newbie, snot-nosed, greenhorn
scripter, I've learn a lot just listening to you guys argue, but there's one
loose end in these threads that I would like to hear some more definitive
responses to (from both sides of the aisle).
Bill Briggs first brought this idea to my attention when he posed the
question:
Why would you write an object reference in your script if you didn't intend
for it to be evaluated?
John D expanded on this some what when he wrote:
If 'say' needs a string, then 'say' ought to make sure it gets one.
I'm guessing that the answer to Bill's question is: "you wouldn't". I'm also
guessing that in lower level lanuages, JD's statement is false because it
would be the programmer's burden to make sure he or she is passing the right
kind of data to the function, however Applescript is intended (I thought) to
shift this burden away from programmer (scripter) thus making the language
more accessible to a wider range of people. Now, being that I don't have a
great deal of experience or expertise in this field, I'm just looking for a
little verification or correction. I can't think of any reason to refer to
an object without intending to act upon it in some way. To my thinking, an
object reference is kind of a virtual assignment operation--you are setting
the contents of "some object reference" to the value of the data actually
described by that reference. Does that make sense, or am I wrong-headed in
my conceptual paraphrasing? And if that's so, then a handy rule of thumb
might be that if I have to explicitly "get" data, then either I have done
something wrong in my code, or there is something lacking in the
interpretation of my code. Does this seem right? And doesn't it seem wrong
that I am having to think so hard about these issues? Doesn't it seem
contrary to the entire concept of Applescript? Isn't Applescript supposed to
be a small step in the direction of my *Grandma* being able to tell her
computer to find her recipe for applecrisp and then make a shopping list of
all the ingredients that she doesn't have enough of and then order all of it
from peapod and then preheat the oven?
Just trying to understand,
-whw
_______________________________________________
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.