Re: "=" is equal to ...
Re: "=" is equal to ...
- Subject: Re: "=" is equal to ...
- From: Dave Stewart <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 11:29:19 -0800
On Sunday, March 16, 2003, at 10:00 PM, Ken Grimm
<email@hidden> responded:
On 3/12/03 4:21 PM, Dave Stewart at email@hidden didst forever
and
always commit to the digital human communication archive:
It's amazing how many
examples are written with "is equal to" and my first thought when I
encountered that was "You've got to be kidding! I want a program, not
a
novel! What's wrong with "="?"
I'm still convinced that AppleScript was written by someone who wanted
to punish scripters by wearing their keyboards out with excessively
verbose junk like this (at least there's a "workaround"), but maybe
that's just my C showing. ;-)
I am one of those verbose "junk" writers and make no apologies for it.
I do
not share the sentiment of somehow I am being "punished."
<snip some background info>
My boss opened up my scripts, and easily found the parameters that
need to
be changed. He was able to, with ZERO programming background, go into
an
AppleScript, read it, understand it, make changes and go on with life.
He
told me it took him less than half a day to change 20 scripts.
That episode was total vindication for me. For all the hard work I put
into
evangelizing AppleScript here. For writing code in that manner. The
whole
schtick about AppleScript being easy to understand and read by
non-programmers was realized in a very dramatic fashion.
That day, AppleScript won. Big time. Because it was NOT written, as
Nick put
it, as "a bunch of punctuation that passes for code."
Honestly, I'm grateful for a "counter point" here. I don't want you to
apologize for anything, but I do want to point out the wink you may
have missed ...
My background is in C-like syntax (C, C++, Java, JavaScript). With that
background, AppleScript is a shock, like licking a 110V power outlet.
Others without that kind of background will undoubtedly feel much more
comfortable with the syntax than I do.
You're story here shows the side of AS that I don't often see (no one
at my work WANTS to look at any code ever for any reason:). It also
helps to remind all of us how valuable self-commenting and well
documented code really is and WHY it's so valuable. I tend to be a
little more verbose than others in my "comfortable" languages just for
this reason alone. Besides, sometimes you open a project you haven't
looked at in a year. It's nice when you don't have to spend half of the
day just figuring out what you were thinking when you wrote it.
Anyway, thanks again for the contrasting view. I hope no one read too
much into my snide comment, as I recognize that AS allows people to
write very powerful apps (and script powerful extensions to existing
apps) without needing a CS degree.
Besides, if every language looked alike anyone could do this. The more
the merrier, right? Variety is the spice of life ...
Dave Stewart
Aqua-flo (Goleta)
email@hidden
There are 10 kinds of people in the world:
Those who understand binary and those who don't.
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