Re: Nice Automator article on O'Reilly
Re: Nice Automator article on O'Reilly
- Subject: Re: Nice Automator article on O'Reilly
- From: "Mark J. Reed" <email@hidden>
- Date: Fri, 6 May 2005 09:49:02 -0400
What you say about Perl is true, but it's also true about Python and
PHP. I personally know many people who abhor those
languages.
I don't, for the record, hate either lang. I prefer Perl to
either, but I also prefer Ruby to Perl, so what do I know. I'm
really psyched about Perl6, but that seems like it's years away.
Python itself is a fine language as far as it goes - the whitespace
thing drives me nuts, the lack of core OO stuff in such an OO-touted
language boggles my mind, but only because of the touting- I don't
think everything has to be OO. But the one thing I can't get past
is the arrogance of the development team. The "Our Way Is The
Only Way" attitude seems firmly entrenched in everyone from Guido on
down.
Hm. Guido and Jobs would probably make a great duo if they didn't kill each other first. But I digress.
PHP is so clunky it makes Perl5's OO stuff look like a well-integrated
design feature of the core language. I still don't know why it
took off like it did; it's not like there weren't already five
bajillion ways to embed your favorite programming language in a web
page. The good thing about its popularity, of course, is
that it's gotten a lot of attention and is steadily getting better.
What I'd like to see is a good generic Apple Events API that can be
leveraged from any language you like, from C through Lisp, kind of like
the DOM - and without waiting for Apple to implement language X
for you, which seems to be the osascript model. Apple took a page
from the Windows Script Host there.
Python is fine, but
On 5/6/05, has <email@hidden> wrote:
Randal L. Schwartz wrote::
>has> 2. Bless Python and PHP as the ways to go for professional,
>has> semi-professional and ambitious-amateur development.
>
>Perl already has Mac::Glue and friends to talk OSA to the rest of the
>system. Might be a simpler starting point, at least to get things
>going.
More
importantly, it also has extensive Cocoa bindings (e.g. CamelBones),
IDEs, vast library support and other essentials for serious web and
desktop application development.
However, Perl is a true
hacker's language at heart - and that means that for every developer
who loves it there's at least one other who absolutely can't stand it.
Say what you like about VB as a language, but as a means of putting
developer bums on Windows seats it's been a phenomenal success. It's
this pragmatic magnetism that Apple needs to replicate on OS X, and for
all its many virtues Perl simply isn't "middle-of-the-road" enough to
be a good "officially approved" VB-equivalent platform.
PHP and
Python are much more conventional, conservative languages, and that
means they'll have good general appeal across a much broader audience.
So I'm not knocking Perl in any way, it's just that it's not the most
appropriate tool in this particular case. Remember, it's not about
which OSS language is teh l33t, it's about which can kick ol' VB's arse
the hardest. <g>
Cheers,
has
--
http://freespace.virgin.net/hamish.sanderson/
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