Re: Nice Automator article on O'Reilly
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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