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Re: Apple script and hypercard
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Re: Apple script and hypercard


  • Subject: Re: Apple script and hypercard
  • From: has <email@hidden>
  • Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2016 09:46:31 +0000

On 21/11/2016 19:38, Stockly, Ed wrote:
Why? The benefit was NEVER in the choice of language; it was in the
ability to tie straight into thousands of apps and harness that
*collective power* for yourself. Keeping Automation locked to
AppleScript is what's been killing it the last 20 years.
Has,

That may be from your prospective as a developer programmer. But many of
us AppleScripter are people who you've said before don't exist.
I don't know where you get that from. I've been an AppleScripter for 16 years. I learned to Automate on it. I learned to Script on it. I even learned to Program on it (up to a point). I've spent 16 years learning from, and contributing back into, the AppleScript community.

I lead-authored the third edition of Apress's Learn AppleScript—a *massive* job—not for fame or money [1], but to provide existing AND NEW AppleScripters a really solid guide into AppleScript from their first "Hello" script to real-world automation with AppleScript's major productivity and recreational apps (Finder, iTunes, FMP, InDesign, etc). Good book; not perfect. Could be better, should be better; would love to make it pure five-stars—but without new users coming into AppleScripters there isn't a market for a 4th edition as Apress have already told me.

I was one of You long before I had to teach myself how to pretend to be one of "Them". Always have been, still am; but unlike you all I've realized that this paralyzing fear of change, while it may seem to offer safety and security (and even exclusivity), is what does us _all_ in over the long term.

For me, the language was and still is a major benefit if not the most
important benefit.
Sure, and I understand why AppleScript users are made to _feel_ stupid and clueless by all those vast, intimidating dot-and-brace languages. That's NOT YOUR fault; it's the fault of all those languages and the programmers who create and use them for THEIR ends. They create something that works JUST FOR THEM, giving themselves special powers and privileges while keeping all the rest of us lowly riff-raff out and firmly in our place.

What you all miss, as AppleScripters cosy in your warm hobbit hole, is that not only does AppleScript effectively exclude that arrogant, know-it-all 1% that is Real Programmers, it also effectively excludes the 98% who are just Ordinary Users. In other words, you all without realizing commit exactly the same sin as the elite geeks do. That's why, when I climbed almost to the top of the AppleScript hill 13 years ago, instead of taking my comfortable, permanent seat with the rest of the AppleScript gurus, I got off that molehill, made my way to the next mountain along, and started climbing that. And yeah, it's that Real Programmer mountain, but don't think my goal's to sit pretty at the top of that either.

Learning to Program has only ever been a means to an end for me, teaching myself the [crappy but much more powerful] tools I need to build the sorts of systems that _I_ want to build. It is also an opportunity to make Automation easy and accessible to those dread "Real Programmers", which is absolutely critical to the survival of AppleScript and Automation—because without professional programmers there are no scriptable apps, and then where does that leave AppleScript and you?

But MY end point is to make end-user programming and automation easily and accessible to EVERYONE: not just the 1% AppleScripters, not just the 1% Programmers; but both of them AND the 98% who are still locked out of both, and so do not share the power, freedom, opportunities, and right to shape and control their OWN tools and choices, and not just have it dictated to them by their "betters".

You want to see what happens when people don't feel in control of their own destiny, just look out the window. And if you think 2016's bad, just wait til Jan 22.


It's why I never adapted Frontier, for example.

Speaking of Frontier, from the very start Apple made an effort to allow
developers to work with the AppleEvent model using whatever language they
chose. They even delayed the original release of AppleScript to
accommodate those (which allowed Winer to release Frontier before
AppleScript was released).
Sure they did, and Dave took a strop because he felt he was competing against Apple for the same market, and was smart enough to know that was a game rigged so only Apple could win, so got out and went to find the Next Big Market and conquer it first (smart move: it was the Web).

Plus (natch), Dave's a flaming egotist and Real Programmer who was 100% certain it should've been HIS product in the OS, not AppleScript, so there was probably some flounce in there too. You tell me: if Frontier HAD gone into System 7 and AppleScript had not, who would've won then?

And remember: *AppleScript*, not Frontier or C or whatever, is not just what hooked you, it's what hooked me too. You would've lost, I would've lost; almost everyone here would just be helpless menu-clicking monkeys instead of only semi-helpless AppleScript command jockeys.

Dave's #1 mistake, and no doubt Apple's too, was in thinking that Frontier OSA and AppleScript were *competing* products, because they "did the same thing": automate your Mac. What both missed was they were targeting two *completely different* markets: programmers, and non-programmers. Course, Dave would've said "learn to program if you want to do it", while Apple were already saying "oh, we're going to put a Programmer Dialect in next"; both strategies that failed.

...

It's like Tim Cook standing on stage and claiming Swift Playgrounds on iPad is the future for teaching all our kids to code. I mean, have you tried Swift? I have, and I've been screaming and tearing my [last remaining] hair in anger and frustration at how stupid and helpless it makes me feel; that's how insanely complicated it is. Yet half the stuff I'm asking it to do for me it can't even do because it's also incredibly crippled and stupid.

The ONLY reason I have stuck at that bloody awful mess is because it is about the fastest growing language in history. So if I can hook onto now it's going to haul me and my work up with it, far quicker and further if I stuck in Objective-C or Python (or AppleScript!), even though I'd have been far further on if I had. Swift is C++ with rubberized corners, and like it or not it is going to be the de facto applications language of the next 20-30 years.

Successfully hooking Mac Automation onto Swift makes bugger all direct difference to AppleScript and its community, but it makes a MASSIVE indirect contribution, because Swift users are not just any old Mac users: they are the Mac users who write the 1000s of Apps—potentially *scriptable* Apps—that you, me, they, _everyone_ on Mac uses. Make them into fans of Automation right at the moment they are trying to find ways to make THEIR App stand out from all the others… c'mon, tell us what that will do for Automation and US.

This is not hard. If I'm a moron and I can see it, everyone else here has no excuse. You just have to put aside one moment your fears of what you could lose, and try to imagine what you could *gain*. And then figure how best to maximize your chances of getting that gain.

...

But none of the other scripting languages really caught on among scripters
or developers.
See, that's wrong. Y'all are living in here so long, you have no inkling, no perspective, on what is happening in the whole world around you.

Frontier didn't catch on because Dave, instead of seeing the opportunity he DID already have in the bag: to sell Frontier to Mac *programmers* and make that market _exclusively_ his, left it on the table and went to win the Web. _Not_ a bad plan, but Frontier was a commercial product with a novel way of working unfamiliar to many jobbing programmers, and the moment that PHP was released—free, programmer-friendly, and totally familiar-looking to them—that was his market ended.

...

Other than that, Frontier was the only language that—up until 2006—was any bloody good at doing Automation at all. Once the original AppleScript designers—Cook and Harris—quit Apple in disgust, there was nobody else there to really explain how this technology worked or assist other language communities in adding their own AE/OSA support.

You tell me: What is the point of an "AppleScript alternative" that is missing half the features and breaks on half the applications and soon as you try to Automate your Mac with it? Of course those other languages failed—they had even less chance of attracting retaining any Automation users than Frontier did! No users, no community. No community, no evangelization, no support. No community, no more users. Building a healthy, enthusiastic, _growing_ community is _everything_. Building product is easy; building community is hard. The AppleScript community may be as enthusiastic as ever, but it hasn't been the other two in years.

The other thing to remember is that first generation of "AppleScript alternatives"—Perl's Mac::Glue, Python's aetools+gensuitemodule, Mark's JavaScriptOSA—were all on classic MacOS. There wasn't even an audience for those languages, never mind their automation facilities back then. They were a niche (automation) within a niche (geek langs) within a niche (geek Mac users) within an already failing niche (90s' Macs). It wasn't until OS X came along and brought both massively popular geek languages and massive influx of geeks that there a viable market into which to sell "Mac Automation for Geeks".

Appscript wasn't the first to enter that market, but it was the first to actually _win_ it. You go ask Matt Neuburg or Clark Goble what appscript was to them. Despite my rubbish salesmanship, I had its first 1000 users in the bag; failing to turn those 1000 into a self-sustaining, self-sufficient, *self-growing* community was all my fault. Likewise, failing to get appscript into 10.5 was ultimately on me too, cos if you never tell anyone why your product is the best and smashes all its competition to dust then no-one's even going to notice it when they're deciding on which one to choose. If Python and Ruby appscript had gotten into 10.5, Matt Neuburg alone would've won it its first 10,000 users within the year. The project wouldn't have needed me, other than to provide support to its first wave of evangelists and gurus, who would then have done everything to attract and retain the million users to follow. These are realistic numbers, btw. You tell us how a million new customers asking for scriptable apps would have benefitted you too, even if you never crossed paths with them yourself.

And while I applaud your efforts to do it right, I'm worried that your
version of done right from the start will pretty much require drastic
language changes that I don't want.

I don't even understand the thinking behind this statement, so I need you to explain it to me as there is something I am missing here about your wants and needs and fears, and I don't understand all the markets for Automation then how am I going to sell Automation to new markets, and how am I going to sell the extant AppleScript market on contributing its knowledge, experience, and enthusiasm to help all these newcomers find their own way too?

As an AppleScripter, the only thing you need know is that SwiftAutomation has nothing to do with the AppleScript language. The number of changes to AppleScript it needs is zip. The number of changes to scriptable apps it needs is zilch.

The only thing SwiftAutomation does is create a new market for scriptable apps. The first new market in 20 years. A market with the potential to pull a *million new customers* into Automation. A market that will also build the next generation of "Scriptable Apps".

It also seems like you have a particular axe to grind against Apple and
the AppleScript development team and are now taking advantage of this new
batch of FUD to push your agenda, which is not the same as mine or many
others.

"Agenda." Do not make me quote Princess Bride at you.

My agenda is to reverse 10 years of slow decline by adding 10,000 _influential_ new Automation users in the next year.

Sal and the Chrises' agenda were to talk good game, fail to deliver it, fail to understand why they failed, then rinse and repeat it over and over again for as long as Apple continued to pay them good money for no result.

What's your agenda? To keep using AppleScript to do your own stuff for the next 3-5 years? OK, you've got that.

Now here's Craig Federighi's agenda, as it affects you: to stick AppleScript and the rest of the extant Automation stack onto maintenance-only Legacy track in 10.13. And to leave it there to roll quietly and gently to its own stop within 5 years, at which point they can finally get rid of it completely and almost no-one will even notice or care.


This New Apple strategy is _already_ on public display for anyone who cares to see: iOS and Siri as user interface and mass-market customer platform for buying and running Apps, App Extensions as the back-end glue that allows the former to control the latter. There is no place for "AppleScript Automation"—or even end-user scripting—in that vision; and there won't be even the slightest chance of one unless we can show Apple why revitalizing Cook and Harris's vision of Automation and adding it to iOS and Siri is going to make Apple way more rich and successful than taking iOS and Siri's vision of "Automation" and making it the future standard on macOS.


There is no FUD: Apple's agenda is crystal clear. iOS is Apple's business, and has been for some time. macOS matters only inasmuch as it ensures Apple's control over the development platform for iOS Apps. Imagine if iOS devs were required to write Apps on Windows or Android: MS/Google could kill that dev platform, or just make it suck at writing iOS apps compared to Windows/Android ones. Beyond that, you're fooling yourself.

On the Fortune 100 list, Mac is a #100 business. iOS is a #1 business…or was, till Apple lost its market lead, intertia, and One More Thing, allowing Google to catch up and pass it. Now Apple is tightening its flabby belt and trying to bring back focus and direction to retake that #1. And they do that by revitalizing their #2 so it steps up by 1, not by trying to build up their #100 by 99.

Super simple, Business 101. The fact it's on a scale a billion times larger than anything you've experienced in your own life is irrelevant: if Tim Cook was running a used car lot that had seen better times, he'd be using the exact same strategies to restart that too.


Plus, seriously, I don't think you have the temperament, track record or
social skills to lead a movement of appleScripters.
Yeah, you know this is 40 year old news, right?

I have the track record to provide the software required to make this work. That's it. The rest is delegation to those who bring all the other skills. And once the software's done, my part's all but done too. I just take the back seat; available for questions if/when those leading the movement has some obscure technical question on the software's innards that needs answered.

I'm not a leader, I've no desire to be a leader; I want to get others to do all the work so I don't have to, and that will be their success, not mine. I don't want the credit, I don't want the money; I _definitely_ don't want any of the attention. I want to hand you the golden goose and point you toward the big city to go make your own fortunes, and in doing so make everyone else filthy rich too. And the moment that's done, I want you off my goddamn lawn so I can get back to the one important business that matters to *me*: getting back to sleep.


I'd be afraid that could easily backfire.

Backfiring would be a luxury; it would indicate that things have at least started to move forward.

I'd be much more afraid that the AppleScript community, having now recovered from its collective heart attack now sticks its heads firmly back in the sand. Which, as I'm sure I'll have pointed out, is its perogative.

However, if you choose to do that, one day not many years from now, you lose everything that you have come to love and depend on—which I do not care about as my backup plan is already in place and I will be just fine selling Mac-to-Win Automation Conversion services for years after. Your funeral, not mine.

But you will also lose your one small chance to help get Automation—the right to control _your_ own tools, and the power to shape and create those tools to serve _you_—put safely into the hands of the billions-strong users of personal computing. And stand idly by as all that power, all that freedom, all those *people* is transferred straight into the absolute control of our new Global Elite of Facebooks, Googles, and Donald Trumps. And THAT is something I will not forgive myself for not even having attempted to stand against.

Best,

has


[1] No-one gets famous writing books unless they have wizards in 'em! And I don't get a penny either as my %5 goes straight to charity.

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References: 
 >Re: Apple script and hypercard (From: has <email@hidden>)
 >Re: Apple script and hypercard (From: John Day <email@hidden>)
 >Re: Apple script and hypercard (From: William Adams <email@hidden>)
 >Re: Apple script and hypercard (From: has <email@hidden>)
 >Re: Apple script and hypercard (From: "Stockly, Ed" <email@hidden>)

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