For the Future of Mac Automation: a Call to Arms [Re: Sal]
For the Future of Mac Automation: a Call to Arms [Re: Sal]
- Subject: For the Future of Mac Automation: a Call to Arms [Re: Sal]
- From: has <email@hidden>
- Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2016 02:08:46 +0000
All,
OK, last one tonight.
WHAT YOU SHOULD ALL DO NEXT:
Do not waste your time on email campaigns and petitions—nobody gives a
crap for those, least of all vast commercial entities like Apple. All
they care about is bums on seats, and all those bums translate to
revenue. Total number of Radar tickets filed will give both Apple and
users a meaningful, quantifiable measure of how important AppleScript
actually is (or isn't) to users, and how many AppleScript users there
actually are (or aren't). Users = customers. More users = more customers
= more opportunities for turning product into money = more reason to
invest in that product in the first place.
So here's two CONCRETE measures that EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU can
contribute: haul yourselves over to <https://bugreport.apple.com> and
file two new feature requests:
Radar ticket 1. "Please add a standard library to AppleScript."
You can dupe my existing ticket at
<http://openradar.appspot.com/28465563 >; just include the
<rdar://28465563> link to save them time. It is a very cheap enhancement
for Apple to make; maybe a month's worth of developer/tester/techwriter
time to do a really polished job, or just a couple days to vet the code
for security, stick on new copyrights, and drop it in as-is. When you've
done so, please copy-paste it to OpenRadar as well, so that there's a
public record of doing so.
Frankly I both hope and expect Apple to shift AppleScript to Legacy
status fairly soon, as it is flawed and obsolete technology well into
the long tail stage of its life cycle. "Legacy" does not mean it will go
away, mind; it just means Apple can stop throwing good development money
after bad, and AppleScript users can be certain that what they have
today is the *final product*. Therefore, persuading them to add a
much-needed, long-overdue AppleScript standard library in 10.13, before
AppleScript development is ended, will be a strong indicator that they
do still care enough about existing AppleScript users to ensure the
language remains usable for the foreseeable future.
Radar ticket 2. "Please adopt SwiftAutomation in macOS 10.13."
Simple, self-explanatory. Add your own rationale if you like. I've not
even written my own ticket yet as I'm still trying to put together a
tutorial that works (Swift's current tooling is a giant pile of shit)
before I start promoting it to users or anyone else. Once again I'm
caught on the hop by events. But I will catch up, so you lot push on now.
----
Point is, AppleScript needs a massive injection of brand new users to
justify any sort of meaningful further investment in it. 10,000 new
users minimum, just to get started. And they're needed *right now*. The
ONLY way to achieve this is by find 10,000 existing users on an
existing—and much more popular and relevant—language, and turn them all
into enthusiastic new Automation users overnight. Fortunately, we
already have the perfect language for this—one that's already highly
popular and seeing massive daily growth—and we already have the
users—already highly skilled, and right slap-bang in the middle of
teaching themselves a whole set of excitingly powerful new skills—and,
best of all, Apple already own both too! Swift language, Swift users.
Then all we need is software to connect them together—and fortunately we
already have that too: SwiftAutomation! I already spotted this
unprecendented THIRD unique opportunity to save AppleScript over a year
ago, and got quietly working on the problem. I've solved it, it works.
Really well too. (I would build professional Illustrator workflows in it
tomorrow were I not already 15KLOC and 2 years into an existing Python 3
investment). All it needs is little bit more spit-n-polish <cough>, and
it's good to conquer the whole Swift world!
Today, you mourn. Tomorrow, your new slogan is:
"Mac Automation: 100% Irresistable Geek Bait!™"
Why? Because it has absolutely no excuse to be anything less than that!
Like cats with catnip (or flies on shit, according to your own opinion
of Real Programmers), we can make thousands of ready-made Swift
programmers fall over themselves desiring to have what we have. And they
will do too, just as soon as we make Mac Automation accessible and
understandable to _them_. I've done that last bit before, successfully,
with appscript, so I can certainly repeat it with SwiftAutomation. So
what all of you need to do now is make it *worth doing*.
If all of you file Radar tickets asking for SwiftAutomation in 10.13,
and then reblog and retweet and whatever the hell it is FBers do to all
your Mac-using mates to file tickets too, that will provide Apple with
the first real, quantifiable evidence they've seen in _years_ that their
tired, saggy old unprofitable Automation platform actually has a
potentially vast new source of users just begging to be tapped, and at
next-to-no cost to themselves too. So file ticket. Doesn't matter if
you're using Swift or not today: if Tim Cook can stand on stage and tell
us Swift's so simple that even a small child can use it, no doubt you
can do too. That's justification enough.
Thousands of brand new Radar tickets all telling Apple exactly the same
thing—Please Give Us Swift Automation Support in 10.13!—are worth
millions of whiny emails. No, more: because they not only do they tell
Apple where there's huge pent-up demand, but also exactly how to cash in
on that demand too. Again, copy to OpenRadar when done; the more people
who file tickets and tell everyone else that they've done so, the more
others will be encouraged to file tickets too. Get them to talk to me, I
will give them the SwiftAutomation software outright, full copyright,
everything. (I want it independent of me for obvious reasons.)
3,000 Radar tickets by Christmas. Minimum 1,000 new Swift Automation
users before 10.13 ships; 10,000 within possibility if we know Apple are
up for it too. Let's make this our target.†
We, the users, are the heart and soul of Mac Automation. We can succeed
where Sal failed. And we can give Apple massive pause for thought in
doing so, because all of this has happened before: when Steve rebooted
the dying Mac 15 years before, and in doing this gave birth to a little
thing called the iPhone too. 'Cos there's a reason my next scripting
language's unofficial nickname is "SiriScript"… and that's just one hint
of the possibilities in which a revived, revitalized, redirected
Automation platform can open up, if Apple does right by it now!
We do all this, not because we love and use Automation ourselves
(although it certainly serves our wants and needs too), but because we
_believe_, as Sal always has, that the full power of personal
computing—not just the power to use tools, but the power to create and
shape our own tools too!—should be open and accessible to ALL computing
users, from grandmothers today to kids of tomorrow.
Let's make it happen folks.
Hamish
---
† e.g. Matt Neuburg published a two-page O'Reilly article on
Ruby-appscript (circa 2007 IIRC), and appscript received 800 fresh
downloads that month alone. The final release of appscript (all
versions) I estimated to have maybe 1,000 users total, which is a
conservative number derived from ~1800 Mac downloads apiece for the
ASDictionary [dictionary viewer] and ASTranslate [syntax translator] tools.
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