Re: Variable Ponderance
Re: Variable Ponderance
- Subject: Re: Variable Ponderance
- From: "John C. Welch" <email@hidden>
- Date: Sun, 03 Oct 2004 17:21:41 -0500
On 10/3/04 4:29 PM, "has" <email@hidden> wrote:
>>> While it's very easy to understand what something like:
>>>
>>> tell app "Finder" to set s to name of file 1 of home
>>>
>>> does, it's rather harder to understand exactly how it does it,
>>> whereas something like:
>>>
>>> s = app('Finder.app').home.files[1].name.get()
>>>
>>> is harder for the casual reader to deduce the meaning of, but easier
>>> for the student to observe the underlying structure of.
>>
>> Really? I suspect your deeper knowledge of what actually happens is
>> coloring your view.
>
> Well, there's a difference between what's familiar (as an
> AppleScripter, dot-syntax will initially seem alien), and what's
> parseable (the rules for parsing AppleScript's keyword-laden,
> dictionary-dependent, context-sensitive syntax are waaay more complex
> than for a context-free dot-syntax). With a [good] context-free
> syntax, all meaning can be gleaned from source code alone. With
> something like AppleScript, it's a lot harder to figure out what a
> particular word does without cross-referencing with other sources of
> knowledge first.
>
> On second thoughts though... my original example isn't such a good
> one after all. While the syntax is disambiguated, the semantics are
> just as unclear as AppleScript's [1][2]. A better choice would be:
>
> s = Application('Finder.app').get(
>
> app.property('home').elements('files').byindex(1).property('name')
> )
Meh...as soon as I see dots, it's all C to me. Life is too short to use C.
john
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