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Re: obligatory snipe [was Re: how can script bundles store extra stuff?]
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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: DigitEL <email@hidden>
  • Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2005 20:18:59 -0700

Various scriptlist posters wrote>

Although I have been at AS for some 7 years now I do consider myself one of the naive, light-weight newbie end-user types and have followed this thread with some interest.

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. Battle-hardened geeks, who can't understand why _anyone_ would want to use AppleScript, totally underestimate how crucial an advantage this is for a certain class of user. For actually writing code, however, AppleScript is way below par: other languages, despite their less charming looks, actually work out much better in terms of clarity, coherence and unambiguousness.


Here, here! I have the greatest respect, awe, and admiration for what 'real' programmers have accomplished and offered up to the rest of us but I have no real interest in 'programming' as such... its a means to an end, and when the day comes that I can simply say, StarTrek style, 'Computer... Do this for me...', I will be even more delighted.



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. If it works, save it somewhere, and that's it. No need to worry about formatting and indenting, saving as a file first with the right suffix, including or importing libraries, setting paths and environments, declaring variables at different levels of some invisible hierarchy - all the programmer-type things which programmers seem to like (and value) but scripters don't. [1]

I like this workflow. I know that life is not always this simple, and that there's a price to be paid. I'd be happy to write scripts in anything else (although I like AppleScript's punctuation-light approach), but everything else I've seen is harder to use at this basic level.

Integration with the OS means better accessiblilty and flexibility and less messing around


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.:)

Way back when there was some statement like, Applescript bridges the gap between application capabilities and end-user customization offering increased productivity and automation of repetitive tasks beyond the what could be reasonably expected from a proprietary application. I saw the potential benefit of this and decided learning 'something' about a computer language would be an asset, and that has been so but the lack of a more formal foundation in programming or scripting has not, yet, left me feeling my leg being chewed at.


Mine is that AppleScript extensive users feel more rewarded than bitten.


Of course; that's what I said. Users finally feel like they're truly in charge of their computers. It's a great feeling, and usually more than compensates for the odd bit of minor blood loss. Besides, selective memory is a handy thing. :)

Since Panther I have found Applescript increasingly difficult to use and more 'programmerish' in feel. All the various things that have been broken and then fixed from version to version have made writing time-inputs grow exponentially rather than decrease. Developing the SystemEvents separation from the Finder, although a very useful addition to the architecture, has made AS less intuitive. I have a few people I have coached in AS over the years with even less interest than I but from time to time have called me up for an evening of pizza and a few beer to see what could be done in a specific task. I have actually seen the light of interest go out in their eyes when I mention the gui-less concept of SystemEvents and how they need to take that into account. As well, most of the scripts I have worked on over the last 7 years don't work as of Panther and I just don't have time nor interest to go back and re-invent the wheel especially when I thought the whole idea of scripting was to save time.


ApplescriptStudio is O.K. but I wonder why anybody wanting to create a 'real' application wouldn't opt to move onto Cocoa which has a lot more environmental controls and whatnot to make a real go of it? AppleScript seems to be moving beyond the reach of people like me. Automator is interesting and maybe just right for the newbie of newbies but is too slow and awkward now that I can write code with a modicum of speed. I don't know but if people like me are considered important in the computing mix, even for the reason for what we help promote the idea of benefits of computing and can demonstrate to others that even 'we/they' can do it, i.e. as market toolers, there needs to be scripting language that fits that kind of user.

--
ForNow
EL


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References: 
 >Re: obligatory snipe [was Re: how can script bundles store extra stuff?] (From: has <email@hidden>)
 >Re: obligatory snipe [was Re: how can script bundles store extra stuff?] (From: pete boardman <email@hidden>)

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