Re: AppleScript a miserable and utter failure
Re: AppleScript a miserable and utter failure
- Subject: Re: AppleScript a miserable and utter failure
- From: "Gary (Lists)" <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:33:46 -0400
"Doug McNutt" wrote:
> Step one would be a simple preference in Script Editor to show the codes. Step
> two would be a second set of programmer-friendly definitions (C headers
> perhaps) in the dictionaries.
All good stuff, from Gruber, and Pugh and Doug.
But Doug's passionate plea strikes me thusly:
AppleScript programmers, unlike Perl programmers, are flat-out resistant to
using 'libs' or 'mods'.
As the janitor over at 'appleMods.sourceforge.net', I can tell you that I
receive loads more email telling me "That's cool stuff, but I'd rather write
my own" than I do asking "Is there a library for handling uploads and
downloads?"
Part of the name-space pollution we can do nothing about.
But, if we are masters of our own destiny...
"Jon Pugh" wrote:
>>
>> My take on the fuss is simply that there needs to be a language czar
>> who ensures that terminology conflicts are fixed. In the current
>> world, that's us and bug reports. As for a complete and utter
>> failure, I think it's doing a pretty good job of working despite
>> that. ;)
...then real projects like a shared, open, collective library system are
immensely useful. (I would much rather, for instance, toss in a Nigel Garvey
vetted list handler, of a Kai's Date handler, than spend 2 days arriving at
a similar end.)
I know that Mac users are generally exceptional people, soaring above all
others in intellect, humor, grace and moxy. However, all those traits
combined can cause a lot of "I'll do it myself, my way, even if it takes me
two weeks and never quite works exactly".
Some (not all) of the problems encountered within "the language" could be
smoothed if folks could get up off their ASS and contribute to, participate
in, and advocate for a shared repository of AppleScript methods, libraries,
or whatever you want to call them.
The plethora of 'code exchanges' out there only continues to add confusion,
because you have to manually vet each chunk you snag from somewhere, or you
have to re-tool it to fit a particular purpose. If those were
peer-reviewed, and put into a repository, then they'd be available to all
and immediately useful.
appleMods.sourceforget.net does _not_ solve all the problems (but it could
solve one big one.)
1. The libraries are starting to become outdated.
2. The installer (while a piece of cake) combined with the language of
describing 'appleMods', scares folks off.
3. The number of libraries is not sufficiently large to create a
gravitational mass.
But...these are, as Jon Pugh said, issues that _we_ could address.
(And I do know that a library system does not address AE namespace issues,
but it is related to reducing the impact of the 'English-language likeness'
problem, especially for complex tasks, reducing the region of possible
user-encountered error to a more narrow band of vocabulary.)
--
Gary
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