Re: What makes AppleScript difficult
Re: What makes AppleScript difficult
- Subject: Re: What makes AppleScript difficult
- From: "Mark J. Reed" <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2007 09:22:46 -0500
Oy, this has degenerated fast. I see what has was talking about.
But I have to respond to this point:
On Dec 6, 2007 3:23 AM, Skeeve <email@hidden> wrote:
> Big SORRY! Now I see! "of" makes the difference... stupid me! Forget me
> complaining about this! It's jsut what others mentioned here. It's too
> much english like. (And I'm not english) It's "POSIX path of ..." but
> just "POSIX file ...".
Whatever else, AppleScript is a programming language. Tiny details of
syntax tend to make huge differences in programming languages. There
are countless examples of things going awry because of such things -
e.g. a single missing comma in a FORTRAN program that resulted in
property damage because a missile launch had to be aborted.
All languages have this problem to some degree. Even AppleScript,
despite its attempt to be Englishlike.
You're comparing "POSIX file" with "POSIX path of", but they are
completely different even without knowing the details of the
dictionary. Applescript terminology is flexible, but there are some
common idioms. "bippity of boppity" requests the "bippity" property
of the object contained in (or referenced by) variable "boppity".
"boppity as bippity" attempts to convert that object into class
"bippity". The prepositionless version, "bippity boppity", could be a
single name that happens to contain a space, or it could be an attempt
to make a new bippity out of boppity.
POSIX path of bargle requests the POSIX path property of the object
already in bargle. POSIX file bargle requests the construction of a
new object referring to the file whose name is in bargle. Subtle?
Perhaps, but that's how languages work.
--
Mark J. Reed <email@hidden>
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