Re: Creating a folder on the desktop
Re: Creating a folder on the desktop
- Subject: Re: Creating a folder on the desktop
- From: Bill Briggs <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2005 02:24:10 -0300
At 9:47 PM -0700 9/6/05, Andrew Oliver wrote:
>On 9/6/05 7:22 PM, "Bill Briggs" <email@hidden> wrote:
>
>> Oooo, I think you're on thin ice here Matt. I'd never take that statement as
>> gospel. Real programming languages - let's take assembler, C, C++, or even
>> Fortran as an example - have a fixed syntax that you can rely on to work every
>> time in every situation. AppleScript is not at all like that, and you know
>> it's not
>
>So you're saying AppleScript is not a programming language?
>I think it's you that is wrong, not Matt.
Not reading very carefully. Further on in the post I said I don't want to engage in that battle that has been waged on this list several times before about whether scripting is really programming or not. I just don't care. But that has no bearing on the OP's question and frustration about the inconsistency of AppleScript. He's right, it is not consistent because of the vagaries of application developers. Nothing you say to the contrary changes that. We all know it's that way. And it's also true that people who come to AppleScript from a programming background typically hate it. Why? Because it's not consistent like C or C++.
>The definition of a programming language is not one that has 'a fixed syntax
>that you can rely on to work every time in every situation'.
Never said it was the definition, but it's largely true. And it's true because C is not tied to an application or bunch of applications, it's an entity that has its own rules and they are consistent. AppleScript is not like C and is subject to the whim of every application developer out there. You simply can't deny it. There's no control. It's all over the place.
>What you're referring to is how strictly typed a programming language is.
>Some are strict, some are loose.
In the thirty years since I wrote my first computer program I've never seen anything that was even remotely close to AppleScript in "looseness". I think you're raising a straw man. AppleScript will never be, can never be, as clear cut as a language like C. I don't say that to trash it, but it's true. It's a manifestation of the very nature of AppleScript and the fact that it relies on individual application developers to be what it is. Consistency will never be wrestled out of this. I'll leave it to you to determine whether scripting is programming or not. I've read the battles on that and I simply don't care about the argument.
>Maybe in your mind strict languages are 'better', but that does not mean the
>loose ones are not programming languages.
Lots of people don't think that AppleScript is a programming language at all. Debate it with them. I don't care about that scripting/programming discussion. What I'm saying is that the OP's frustration with AppleScript is well founded. Faced with a new application you really don't know how it'll behave, and the difference between the syntax required for the Finder and for System Events defies any logic. Chris Nebel even said as much. It's not the simple english-like thing it's said to be. I don't even know how one could pretend that it was. You just don't find this kind of flakiness in the vast majority of programming languages. I've not encountered any that are even remotely close to AppleScript in that regard. Again, that doesn't mean I don't find it useful, but I often find it annoying.
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