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Scripting Interface Design
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Scripting Interface Design


  • Subject: Scripting Interface Design
  • From: Philip Aker <email@hidden>
  • Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 07:29:17 -0700

On 2007-06-21, at 04:55:12, has wrote:

On a related note, Mark Alldritt just put up a very good blog post on the need for a Scripting Interface Design guru to educate developers about the technology and help them design scripting interfaces that don't suck:

    http://www.latenightsw.com/blog/?p=32

Well worth a read. (I've already left my own 2c on the subject, of course.;)

I didn't see it there yet.

However, Scripting Interface Design now presumes an SDEF, so the first questions should be about the SDEF schema because that now defines everything.

One might very well ask: "What schema?", because it's only a DTD right now. As such, there's a couple of loose ends that should be tied up because DTDs permit stuff that's illegal in XML Schema and there's a problem with that in sdef.dtd. The effect of dealing with seemingly insignificant details like this can have a ripple effect upwards on communicating scripting design. That's because having an XML Schema will enforce the description to an unambiguous mechanical sensibility.

Does that sound like a limitation? Well no, not for AppleScript. It will actually be an enhancement. Take a look at the XML Schema data types <http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-xmlschema-2-20041028/#built-in- datatypes>, and regular expression possibilities <http://www.w3.org/ TR/2004/REC-xmlschema-2-20041028/#regexs> for starters.

When a language can be expressed like that, it follows that the ensuing implementation, and the possibilities it presents are clear. Hence explaining scripting interface design will not be limited to the realm of the guru, but rather more the territory of advanced users. That is how it should be because it increases the chances that dictionary designs will be harshly critiqued and from that, better guidelines evolved.

Beside the gory details though, there's also the question of what the SDEF DTD->schema doesn't have defined. Like extensibility, adaptability for other implementations, and annotations (appinfo in particular). And this last bit should be of some concern for all those dealing with an AppleScript implementation in their applications because having it be extensible with room for custom calls will make things very flexible.


Philip Aker email@hidden


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