Re: obligatory snipe [was Re: how can script bundles store extra stuff?]
Re: obligatory snipe [was Re: how can script bundles store extra stuff?]
- Subject: Re: obligatory snipe [was Re: how can script bundles store extra stuff?]
- From: has <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2005 10:34:40 +0100
pete boardman wrote:
>>AppleScript's one big newbie advantage is that it's tremendously easy to read: even folk who've no knowledge of programming can look at AppleScript source and grok its general meaning.
>
>True. But the main reason we newbies like using AppleScript is as much to do with the workflow as the language itself. Find some existing code on the net or in an email, launch Script Editor, paste it in, hit Run - it compiles, formats, and runs it, with feedback as to how each line worked.
This is true of all mainstream scripting languages; there's tons of third-party code slopping around out there free for the taking. Again, AppleScript's advantage is that it's easy for non-programmers to look at that code, figure out roughly what it does even if they don't really understand how it does it, and grab it if it looks close enough to what they want. On a good day it's even possible to make minor tweaks to existing code by nothing more than trial and error.
Programming purists may sniff, but to someone who knows and cares nothing of programming that small but crucial advantage is a tremendously powerful tool: for them it makes the whole difference between getting something done or not. With other languages the syntax is much less intuitive, so you have to learn the language before you can even reuse existing code. For folk who really need to get something done and have little inclination to sit down and learn a language first, AppleScript's offer of "do now, learn later" is exactly the entry point they're looking for. (It'll come back and bite them later, of course, but by that time they're so damn elated they'll hardly even notice their leg chewed off.:)
has
--
http://freespace.virgin.net/hamish.sanderson/
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