Re: AppleScript and shell scripting
Re: AppleScript and shell scripting
- Subject: Re: AppleScript and shell scripting
- From: Philip Aker <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2007 07:30:02 -0700
On 2007-07-26, at 06:11:24, has wrote:
…what's important is using the right problem-solving technique for
the job, which for textual pattern matching is regular expressions.
Ed's problem was that he's letting his fear/dislike of
implementation X (Unix shell) blind him to the benefits of using
technique Y (regular expressions) despite them being completely
orthogonal (i.e. execution vs concept).
I learned regexp the easy way: the old BBEdit Lite tutorial. I don't
know if it's still around but for anyone interested, there's a
resource listing at: <http://grep.extracts.de/>
Personally, I think that anyone who's using AppleScript as their
sole language on a regular basis should make a point of learning at
least one other language (e.g. Python, Ruby, bash, Smalltalk) as
soon as they can get over their initial syntaxophobia. The first
step to becoming a competent scripter in *any* language -
AppleScript included - is to learn how much you *don't* know.
Exposing yourself to other tools and practices outside your current
comfort zone will really help to open your eyes here, and even if
you decide not to continue using that language, the knowledge and
experience you've gained will help to make you a better AppleScripter.
Which, extended, kinda relates to my previous thoughts:
To my way of thinking, this emergent scripting language globish
("scriptish"), is the most functionality expressed in the most
succinct but logically extensible format. It's nature won't be
determined by language purists but rather arise from the common
usage of polyglots.
Cheers,
Philip Aker
email@hidden
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