AppleScript "standard libraries" project - need to hand off now
AppleScript "standard libraries" project - need to hand off now
- Subject: AppleScript "standard libraries" project - need to hand off now
- From: Hengist Podd <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2016 15:53:10 +0100
Hi all,
As you may recall, back at the start of this year I was bitching about
the AS team adding a native library loader to AppleScript in 10.9 yet
bizarrely forgetting to provide ANY general-purpose libraries along with
it, after which I decided to go write the damn things myself just so AS
users would at least have something decent to use. The result was a set
of seven 'standard libraries' (plus one support and one code testing
library) providing commands for a wide range of everyday tasks:
Text -- general text manipulation (change case, trim, split, join, etc),
search and replace (includes regular expression support)
Number -- parse and format numeric text, decimal rounding, logarithms,
trigonometry
Date -- parse and format date text and records, time zone and
localization support
List -- general list manipulation (insert, remove, filter, transpose),
search, customizable sort
File -- path manipulation, read and write files, shell script support
Objects -- native dictionary, stack, queue, and timing objects
Web -- URL string manipulation, parse and format JSON data, send HTTP
requests
You can grab the full set off Github; just download, unzip, and drop all
the library scripts into ~/Library/Script Libraries ready for use:
https://github.com/hhas/applescript-stdlib/archive/master.zip
They all have SDEFs so you can drop them onto SE's Library window for
quick access to documentation too. Just add the appropriate `use script
"NAME"` statements at the top of your scripts and you're good to go.
Anyway, long story short, I got it about 98% done before running out of
both time and motivation - the implementation is feature-complete and
generally pretty polished and bombproof, but there's still some holes to
fill in test coverage and user documentation. With the day job finally
starting to kick off (yay!) the rest of my year is going to be busy with
that (I've a TODO list already as long as my arm), and any leftover dev
time will be going into trying to get my entoli language (a
next-generation AppleScript-Logo hybrid) up and out. I waited to see
what was announced at WWDC just in case the AS team had something up
their sleeves, but with zero progress on AppleScript and Apple itself
now trying to shill Swift Playgrounds as "Programming for Everyone"
(yeah, right), I simply can't spend any more time on AppleScript work
when I'm neither getting paid for it nor have any use for it myself.
In an ideal world Apple would take over these libraries itself and
include them directly in future OS releases, but the AS team didn't even
reply to the offer (Not Invented Here syndrome is endemic in that dept).
So, if the AppleScript community would like a chance to *help itself*
then here it is: I want someone experienced in AppleScript and ASOC, and
preferably with some actual programming skills as well (cos this is not
just toy code), to step up and officially take the whole project over
from me over the next couple of weeks. That's *full ownership*, BTW: all
copyright, choice of license, project management, etc. I'll provide
assistance in getting up to speed on the code, plus I can provide
private support in dealing with any help requests and bug squashing if
requested. But otherwise I'm having no involvement: getting the
libraries out into users' hands and providing ongoing education,
evangelization, maintenance, and support falls to the new owner, and the
freedom to do that (and whether it ultimately succeeds or fails) is
entirely theirs too.
Anyone who has the technical chops, time, and confidence to have a
realistic crack at it, please drop us an email (and/or reply to the
list; I'm not bothered either way), making sure to use my new address
(email@hidden) if emailing directly. I do hope someone will,
but please no timewasters: if you crater it then that's on you (I'm not
cleaning up), just as if you make a huge success of it the credit's all
yours too. Alternatively, if no-one steps up by end of June I'm just
going to zip it up and put it in a Radar request asking Apple to take
it. I'll post the ticket here so folks can dupe it if they want, but
frankly the best way to get a high-quality stdlib into 10.13 is to get
thousands of AS users happily using it first, then get all of them to
demand its official adoption. Either way I'm deleting the repo and all
related work no later than 15 July (I've too many dead projects trailing
around already), so that gives everyone a nice clean deadline to aim for.
Best regards,
has
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