On Nov 26, 2014, at 12:14 PM, has wrote:
Bill Cheeseman unfortunately wrote:
> I also want to comment on Shane's concern about AppleScript's
future. I've been hearing the same fears of doom ever since 1993.
Probably because AppleScript's been struggling to survive since
almost the day it was born. It's had its positive moments - Cal
Simone's righteous army of print automators saving it being Jobsed
in the late 90s, and the early OS X years when it seemed to find
fresh life - but for pretty much the last decade it's slowly slid
into the weeds. Anyone who doesn't accept it's well into the long
tail section of its life cycle is just fooling themselves.
> Basically, AppleScript has survived all these years because it
fills a need for many of us (including the lurkers on the list who
never pipe up).
AppleScript survived its first decade because it made itself
indispensable to the print industry - who in turn were a critical
core market that Apple could not afford to lose at a time when other
customers were abandoning Mac in droves. Print is no longer a core
Apple market, however, so if the knives were to come out now it's
unlikely they'd save its skin again. Don't delude yourself: all your
personal love and devotion doesn't do shit to keep AppleScript
alive. The only thing that matters to Apple is what brings the cold
hard filthy lucre; and AppleScript is a drop in an ocean these days.
Let's take a step back and look at AppleScript in perspective.
In the beginning there was IBM which had a language called JCL : Job Control Language (JCL) is a name for scripting languages used on IBM mainframe operating systems to instruct the system on how to run a batch job or start a subsystem.
I wrote my first program on a Burroughs mainframe which used a language called CANDE: CANDE (Command AND Edit) is a command line shell and text editor on the MCP (Master Control Program) operating system which runs on the Unisys Clearpath series of mainframes. Implemented on Burroughs large systems, it has a range of features for interacting with the operating system execution environment, focused on executing, editing and compiling programs, and creating, copying, moving, renaming, and deleting files in general.
These languages allowed the programmer to access data and call previously written programs and route this data thru them. Without these languages, the computer is somewhat useless. They were at the heart of what made a computer work and were indispensable.
AppleScript fills this role in Mac OS X. If Apple insists on not paying attention to the core role of AppleScript, it will find itself in an undesirable situation which will affect its ability to "bring in the cold hard filthy lucre".
But, how do we get Apple's attention to this problem ?
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