Re: Nice Automator article on O'Reilly
Re: Nice Automator article on O'Reilly
- Subject: Re: Nice Automator article on O'Reilly
- From: has <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 7 May 2005 21:33:31 +0100
John C. Welch wrote:
> > Really? You must tell Bill Atkinson that; I'm sure he'd be very surprised. And
>> don't forget, back then Bill was pioneering brand new unexplored territory
>> with only a miniscule amount of system APIs and machine resources for support.
>> So what's the excuse now?
>
>Let's see...
>
>Compare for relative difficulty
>
>create a language/programming environment for a brand new platform with a
>few thousand users, and maybe a hundred programmers outside of apple.
>
>Do the same for a two - decades old platform in it's second incarnation,
>still doing a LOT of bug shakeouts, with 25 million users or so,
Interesting theory: the more users a system has, the harder it becomes to develop software for it. By that reasoning, software development for Windows must be logically impossible. Oh noes, somebody tell B1LL G@T35!
>coming up with a way to have one-click migration of
>all those workflows because if you have to rewrite the workflows in a new
>language from scratch ANYWAY
One: as I've said repeatedly, AppleScript would not go away any time soon: it would remain for legacy support just as Classic does. Users would be encouraged to do new projects in the new environment; their existing ones would stay where they are. Two: It would also be trivial to provide two-way bridging between the new and old systems so that one can call handlers in the other and vice-versa (the new environment would be fully scriptable and attachable, just any good Mac application should). Three: if there really were significant demand for automated migration tools, put it on the TO DO list for version 2 or 3, or just call it a nice little opportunity for some enterprising ISV.
>How about Apple DOESN'T repeat the same mistake Microsoft is currently
>making, hmm?
Which one? The one where, after a decade investing vast amounts of resources in maintaining painstaking legacy support they reach the point of diminishing returns where the cost of users throwing tantrums for a year or two due to starting over with a clean slate is now less than the cost of digging themselves much further into that hole. Users _always_ whine when things change. But after a while they tend to discover that the new way is actually far better than the old way, and quietly shut up. (Hell, I've done it myself often enough.) Microsoft will be just fine, and in a few years most folk will have forgotten their initial upset as nothing more than an embarrassing little storm in a teacup. A big long-term gain often justifies a bit of short-term pain - just ask Apple.
> > Look, the sort of product I talking about is, roughly speaking, just a more
> > granular version of Automator [...] But if all you're going to come up with is
> > reactionary hyperbole and diversionary strawmen then this is not a useful
>> discussion and I have better things to do with my time.
>
>Has, I love you. Dearly.
Trust me, it's not reciprocated. You get my goat. (But hey, nothing motivates me better.)
>You stop at the language, and that's the end of
>your world. None of the other implementation issues exist to you, so
>everything can be done in a week by a 16 year old.
>
>Of course, that's completely incorrect, and inaccurate, but I do love the
>simplicity of your universe. If only the rest of the world were that simple.
Oh dear, you've now exceeded your reactionary hyperbole and diversionary strawmen quota for the month. Colour me trolled, but I'm outta here.
has
--
http://freespace.virgin.net/hamish.sanderson/
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