Re: WWDC and AS
Re: WWDC and AS
- Subject: Re: WWDC and AS
- From: Don Briggs <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 1 Apr 2004 08:03:21 -0800
On Mar 31, 2004, at 5:32 PM, has wrote:
John C. Welch wrote:
Ooh...the list of WWDC sessions that mention AppleScript:
[...]
Automated Testing Using AppleScript
[...]
This piqued my interest, so I looked up the description for this
session:
"Using practical examples, this session will teach you how adding an
AppleScript interface to your application can provide an efficient and
powerful way to create thorough automated testing.[...]"
Uh-oh...
As acting temporary devil's advocate, I gotta say this sounds very
_wrong_. Writing tests against an application's scripting interface is
fine... for testing the scripting interface. But for testing an
application's business layer, aka Model, developers should be writing
their automated tests directly against the Model's own APIs, classes,
procedures, etc. Not several layers away; especially when those extra
layers are closed, immature, and a potential source of bugs
themselves.
To me, it sounds suspiciously like some kind of misguided attempt to
boost AppleScript and/or application scripting support amongst
professional programmers - trying to improve AppleScript's "developer
street cred" by sneaking or shoehorning it into professional software
development processes, regardless of whether or not it's actually an
appropriate use for this technology. (More knowledgeable folk are
welcome to disabuse me of such concerns, of course, if they can.)
I see the WWDC session, "Automated Testing Using AppleScript," as a
hopeful sign.
I see it as another indication of Apple's commitment to AppleScript
and, I infer, to AppleScriptability for Cocoa.
In the WWDC AppleScriptability sessions of recent years, developers
have been encouraged to design new apps with AppleScriptability in
mind.
In that context, automated testing using AppleScript makes very good
sense.
I have, in fact, used it that way.
AppleScript, after all, speaks to the "Model" (the business layer).
(Yes, Apple has added the suites of the AppleScriptKit framework, but
it exposes the underlying "Model" of some view and control stuff.)
I presume that this WWDC session would not have been scheduled if Apple
had not found success in this technique internally.
As for improving "developer street cred," I would judge that one intent
is improve the credibility of serious AppleScriptability.
In a recent exchange in this list, "Jeff Handy" <email@hidden> wrote:
3 - Sal has been sending subliminal messages over the web in those
X.10
camera popups
and John C. Welch quipped:
We need to send subliminals to the Professional Applications Group ;-)
Finally, I would venture my own subliminal message to Apple's Cocoa
AppleScript support folks:
Wouldn't it be nice if AppleScriptable Cocoa apps were recordable by
default?
If that were true, then a Cocoa developer intending to support
AppleScriptability would not have to learn much AppleScript at all.
(In my own automated testing, I recently trashed a bit: I had an error
in my test script and I mistook it for an error in my Objective-C.)
The real boon of pervasive recordability would be to AppleScript Users,
though.
All best,
Don
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