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Re: Nice Automator article on O'Reilly
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Re: Nice Automator article on O'Reilly


  • Subject: Re: Nice Automator article on O'Reilly
  • From: Elliotte Harold <email@hidden>
  • Date: Fri, 06 May 2005 10:41:14 -0400

John C. Welch wrote:

AppleScript's syntax, while more clumsy and less efficient from a pure
programming point of view is also much FRIENDLIER. That comes with, like
every other syntax, advantages and disadvantages. I've seen secretaries jump
on to AppleScript.

I couldn't disagree more. AppleScript is by far the least friendly language it's ever been my displeasure to use; and I've used Perl, VBA, and C++.


I mean, really, what insane person ever thought it made sense to allow classes and methods to be defined with white space in their names but then not allow the parser to recognize those classes and methods?

All the weird semi-human syntax in AppleScript makes it less friendly, not more. If AppleScript actually supported real human language, it might be a different story. However, it doesn't. Almost 15 years after I started using AppleScript I still can't tell if a line of code is likely to compile or not. I still can't figure out which operations are likely to be allowed on which variables. Half the time I still can't tell why a line of code that looks correct isn't.

AppleScript is at best a wolf in sheep's clothing. It may look friendlier and inviting when you're reading someone else's code, but try to change or reuse that code and reality sets in. The code only looks readable. Fixing a problem, even a basic syntax error, is far harder in AppleScript than in any other language I've ever written code in.

--
Elliotte Rusty Harold  email@hidden
XML in a Nutshell 3rd Edition Just Published!
http://www.cafeconleche.org/books/xian3/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0596007647/cafeaulaitA/ref=nosim
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