Re: Nice Automator article on O'Reilly
Re: Nice Automator article on O'Reilly
- Subject: Re: Nice Automator article on O'Reilly
- From: Christopher Nebel <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 9 May 2005 11:08:07 -0400
On May 9, 2005, at 6:21 AM, Dennis W. Manasco wrote:
Regarding the definition of "programmer":
To say that someone who programs in AppleScript isn't a programmer
is, to my understanding of the word, ridiculous: Programming is
writing in a defined language, AppleScript is a defined language,
q.e.d. writing in AppleScript is programming.
Quoting from TN2106:
"Scripting is programming using a scripting language. That wasn’t
very helpful: what is a scripting language? A scripting language is a
task-specific programming language, as opposed to a systems
programming language such as C, C++, or Java. Systems programming
languages are designed to build applications from the ground up and
are very general purpose – you can build anything, but you also have
to build everything, often out of very small pieces. Scripting
languages, on the other hand, are designed with a particular task in
mind. They can express things appropriate to the task very easily,
but are awkward or even mute on other matters. For example, awk is
very good at manipulating columnar text, and ActionScript is very
good at multimedia, but you wouldn’t want to use either of them for
financial reporting."
The original version had a sidebar here, which was cut because of
format constraints:
"Is scripting programming or isn't it?
It depends on what you mean by 'programming.' To some people, it
means tedious detail, years of training, and pages of code to do
anything -- in other words, all the bad aspects of a systems
programming language. Therefore, scripting is not programming. To
other people, it means customizing the behavior of the computer.
Therefore, scripting is programming -- and so are parametric CAD
drawings, spreadsheets, and even preferences. This introduction uses
the second definition. Programming does not have to be obscure and
difficult, and the point of these guidelines is to help it be less so."
--Chris Nebel
AppleScript and Automator Engineering
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