I don't really understand this claim. 99% of people I know who have a mac have no idea what AppleScript is or what they could use it for. It doesn't seem to be affecting the utility of their machines. Even in my own case, I switched to the mac in 2004, but never picked up AppleScript till 2011. Didn't stop me from using my mac very productively before that.
For a single user environment Applescript is probably overkill. But in a production environment, with users collaborating on projects, and using Mac servers, (and especially Filemaker server with it’s Applescript capabilities), it is an absolute godsend. We write music and do sound design for TV and movies, and so much of what we do collaboratively depends on Applescript (and shell scripts spawned by them). Some real world examples:
Notify via email a certain email group when a file is dropped onto a server share. (Yes, this could be done with a launchd and fsevent, but it’s so easy to do in Applescript and folder actions)
Open a bunch of audio files - calculate their duration in 00:00:00 format, and format appropriately as text, then paste into a Filemaker field. In fact, Applescript is so heavily integrated into our Filemaker database that we could not operate without it without a complete rewrite.
Drag a bunch of audio files onto an Applescript app and process in any number of ways (convert from AIF to AAC using “afconvert” shell command, tag them using “Atomic Parsely", convert to mp3 using “Lame”, convert mono to stereo using “Sox”, etc etc).
We still rely heavily on being able to script Quicktime 7. It was a shock to see Quicktime X drop support for Applescript. If future OS’s drop support for scripting QT altogether, we will have a major adjustment to make.
Jim Weisbin | C.T.O. | human | 138 Fifth Avenue | 3rd Floor | New York, NY | 10011 | (212) 352-0211 | (917) 375-2272 | Los Angeles Office | 2046 Broadway | Santa Monica, CA | 90404 | (310) 264-0211 telephone | www.humanworldwide.com
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