Re: dev tools
Re: dev tools
- Subject: Re: dev tools
- From: "John C. Welch" <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2007 00:26:51 -0600
- Thread-topic: dev tools
On 12/10/2007 14:31 PM, "has" <email@hidden> wrote:
> John C Welch wrote:
>
>>> You can dig coal with a spoon, and by definition that's "getting the
>>> job done" too. Or you could use an industrial coal cutter and do
>> it a
>>> million times quicker and better and not have to work yourself to
>>> death, but only if you're aware that such a thing exists.
>>
>> Not everyone only digs for coal. Some folks only need to plant a few
>> posies
>> in the spring. Care to explain to them why they absolutely need an
>> industrial coal cutter to dig a handful of small holes?
>
>
> This is drifting well away from the original point. Here is the OP's
> original comment, and my response:
Then make better points.
>
>>> I am an Obj-C/Cocoa developer, among other tools and languages, and
>>> continue to be amazed at how painful AppleScripting is...
>
>>>
>>> I pity the non-technical user.
>>
>> Non-technical users are blessed with the unawareness that they are
>> being sold short.
>
> In other words, if non-technical users are happy with what they're
> doing, that's just great for them. Of course, even with only basic
> needs it doesn't guarantee that they aren't still being stiffed - and
> even today's merry posy planters may later become ulcer-ridden hole
> diggers should their needs start to grow while their knowledge doesn't
> - but as folks say: Ignorance is Bliss.
Then let them make that decision. Shocking, but many of us lead productive
scripting lives, sans ulcers, even though we don't' do it your way. We go to
work, get work done, write new scripts, maintain old ones, all without a
lick of python. (If that statement shocks you, please, by all means do have
a seat and perhaps a martini)
I am continually amused at your insistence that liking AppleScript, and
wanting to improve it rather than trashing the whole thing for YADL is
somehow a sign of ignorance. Maybe there's a lot of us doing good work in a
language that works for us, and we don't see an advantage to switching just
because you insist we should.
>
>
>>> Education is everything, and a big advantage that professional Cocoa
>
>>> developers have is that they already have lots of it.
>
>>
>
>> No, that means they can talk about Cocoa-AppleScript issues more
>> effectively
>
>> than someone who only knows AppleScript. Being a Cocoa/ObjC expert
>> with some
>
>> education in AppleScript does not mean you have the same mindset as
>> someone
>> cranking out AppleScript for a living, and in fact, that
>> "AppleScript only "
>> person is probably going to be far better at explaining what a good
>> implementation needs to look like to scripters than someone who only
>> cares
>
>> about it from a dictionary creation POV.
>
> Right, because an imperfect conduit isn't an improvement over no
> conduit at all. Your "AppleScript only" people have had the last
> fifteen years to explain to professional application developers where
> they're going wrong, and how well has that worked? Talk, talk, talk,
> talk, bloody talk, and it's all a complete waste of time because the
> two parties are using two completely different lingos and talking
> straight past one another.
And your approach of insinuating that anyone who doesn't learn Python and
ObjC is a complete idiot is working SO well too. Ow, my eyes cramped, rolled
too far.
Dude, I've never understood this jihad of yours, but honestly, I don't care.
I've seen what passes for dictionaries when written by people who know
enough about AppleScript to write the word correctly, and to be blunt,
they're crap. You want a good dictionary, you need input from the people who
will use it the most, not python missionaries.
>
> Look, there are only two ways you're ever going to get the brilliant
> scripting implementations that you, I and everyone else here wants to
> have:
>
> 1. Throw sufficiently large sums of MONEY at application developers
> that they prostrate themselves at your every whim.
It's called "the purchase order". You may have heard of hit.
>
> 2. Turn them into USERS and FANS of the technology themselves.
According to you, that's impossible until AppleScript becomes Python or
ObjC.
>
>
>>> The AppleScript community may be good at many things, but
>> communicating with
>
>>> non-AppleScripters isn't one of them.
>
>>
>
>> That knife cuts both ways, and the other side is just as bad.
>
>
> Thanks, you've just proven my point for me: Professional programmers
> who only know ObjC/Cocoa *do not listen to* 'non-programmers' who only
> know AppleScript. [1] How to fix this... hmm, let me think:
Start listening to people who don't think the sun shines out of the Cocoa
API's ass? Start listening to your customers? Take a course in economics
that points out how pissing off the people with the money is perhaps a bad
idea?
>
> That pretty much leaves us with my original suggestion: get Cocoa
> developers onto our side. Educate them in the AppleScript Way
> sufficiently well that while they may not be intimately familiar every
> single last nook and cranny of the AppleScript world, they understand
> it well enough that they know what a good scripting implementation
> should look and behave like. This will have two benefits:
To whom? So far, your solution is "Scripters do all the work, the people
they write checks to wait for them to be proper supplicants". That's not
EXACTLY meeting someone halfway.
>
> 1. What they've already learnt is knowledge that they can convey to
> other ObjC developers, and while there's no guarantees here, there is
> at least a better chance of them being listened to.
>
> 2. They will be a lot more willing and capable of listening to the
> True AppleScript Gurus like yourself, since both parties now share
> some common language and experience (not to mention some common pain
> of the sort inflicted when Cocoa developers get their scripting
> designs wrong).
>
Funny, how the only way this will work is for AppleScripters to stop writing
Applescripts while they learn enough ObjC to become cocoa programmers
themselves. Heaven forbid they get listened to because they write checks for
the application. Nope, unless you can write code as well as the ISV, you
don't count. Does this pass for sanity in your world, because it sounds like
crap to others.
>
> However, these "broken" Cocoa developers are not going to fix
> themselves, and since it's the AppleScript community that stands to
> gain or lose by far the most here, in practical terms it's the
> AppleScript community that is going to have to do all the work in
> laying all the ground for this. Yeah, it's unfair that one side has to
> do all the work, but suck it up already, because it's the best, and
> only (short of waving vast sums of cash again), chance that this will
> ever have of happening.
If I'm paying you a couple hundred bucks a pop for your code, you can listen
to me, or wave bye to my checks. That's *my* hardline as a sysadmin. I don't
care how cool your application is, you're never the only game in town.
Funny how in your view, all the "sucking up" has to be done by the customer.
You're not real familiar with that relationship, are you.
>
>
> has
>
> p.s. Oh, and you really don't need to tell me of some of the
> boneheaded statements that programming weenies manage to come out with
> at times when discussing AppleScript, etc. I've only been out on one
> of those damned front-lines myself for the last four years, after all.
> And if you think it's lonely where you are, come try *my* world
> sometime...:p
A) I know, you've made quite a few of them yourself with regard to
"AppleScript must become python" and b) there's no room in your world for
anyone else's opinion. That's been obvious for years, as indicated by "Oh,
those poor happy scripters don't know how bad they're getting screwed by not
learning a "real" language".
>
>
> [1] My statement that ASers aren't good at communicating with non-
> ASers wasn't attempting to apportion any specific blame - it takes two
> to tango - but squabbling over who's more to blame for this dreadful
> communication gap is never going to change anything.
Neither is pretending that one side has to do all the work.
>
> [2] Again, not apportioning blame: such conservatism has certain
> advantages too; specifically, immediate concrete rewards versus
> immediate concrete investment is a damn good deal for those who only
> care about the short-term. Just don't turn around and whine about the
> lack of long-term returns afterwards, because you can't have your cake
> and eat it as well.
Again, why should I buy your application if you can't be bothered to listen
to me?
--
It's also realizing that maybe, just maybe, UNIX didn't invent every
clever idea out there. Maybe, just maybe, resource forks are actually a
good idea. And maybe we shouldn't just say "Oh, UNIX already has
directories, we don't need no steenking resource forks".
Linus Torvalds
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