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Re: [OT] AppleScripter's Salary
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Re: [OT] AppleScripter's Salary


  • Subject: Re: [OT] AppleScripter's Salary
  • From: Chris Page <email@hidden>
  • Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2007 11:11:59 -0800

On Feb 26, 2007, at 18:22 PM, Doug McNutt wrote:

First Hypercard and then AppleScript were advertised as "programming for the rest of us" with "English-like" syntax that made it all simple enough that a priesthood of paid programmers would not be required.

Nobody said anything about not paying fair value for expert skill. "Priesthood" is orthogonal to "professional". I *could* perform a number of repairs on my car, given a manual and enough time, but there's *value* in having an experienced expert do it for me.


Hypertalk and AppleScript are accessible to a fantastically larger group of people than assembly or C programming, but most computer users I know aren't ever going to use them at all. If they need professional software written in one of these languages they're going to hire a professional to do it.

Automator helps provide even more accessibility, but there are still going to be vast numbers of people who won't even deal with that level of detail themselves, favoring paying an expert.

That could still become true. But what has actually happened is that shell scripting is in fact easier than AppleScript!

In what way? Can you elaborate?

I've programmed in dozens of languages over the course of decades and I find AppleScript objectively easier to use than any shell scripting language I've encountered. It's going to depend on what you're trying to do, of course, and whether you've got convenient OSAXen around to provide the fundamental operations you need. (If you don't, you may have to resort to driving shell commands from AppleScript occasionally, but that's not the same as "shell scripting is easier than AppleScript".)

Whatever happened to the original concept that would make paid Apple scripters an oxymoron?

I don't recall that concept being mentioned when either Hypercard or AppleScript was introduced.


It sounds to me like you're falling prey to the "excluded middle" logical fallacy. "Easier" and "accessible" do not exclude "expert", "valuable" and "paid".

--
Chris Page - Super Happy Fun Engineer

 Do not taunt Super Happy Fun Engineer.


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References: 
 >Re: [OT] AppleScripter's Salary (From: jj <email@hidden>)
 >Re: [OT] AppleScripter's Salary (From: Tim Mansour <email@hidden>)
 >Re: [OT] AppleScripter's Salary (From: Doug McNutt <email@hidden>)

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