Re: Scripting Better Applescript support requests !
Re: Scripting Better Applescript support requests !
- Subject: Re: Scripting Better Applescript support requests !
- From: has <email@hidden>
- Date: Sun, 05 Mar 2017 17:31:04 +0000
Jim Underwood wrote:
With all due respect [...] I and others, continue to use and develop JXA scripts on a daily basis
that work very well.
Just so we're clear: you do realize I am THE world expert in this
technology? "Respect" would be NOT insulting my intelligence with that
"it works for me" garbage (the SOP reply of every Real Programmer when
politely informed their product works wrong). I notice you you don't
mention all the other enthusiastic JS users who tried to use JXA, only
to give up on it in frustration and return to using AppleScript—where's
your respect for them?
I'm sure JXA has its flaws, but then so does AppleScript.
I really have not found any JXA flaws that impact, or prevent, my
workflows.
Congratulations, you write noddy code.
Those of us who write real production systems for a living have higher
standards. And I not only write high-end automation, but had to learn
how to write production-quality Apple event bridges too, just so I could
write those systems using languages that weren't entirely shit. So my
standards are: as good as I've *already* done, or piss off and stop
wasting our time. And I'm a just a dumb old art school drop-out who
never had a single CS lesson—so what's Apple's [now-ex] Automation team
justification for repeatedly delivering grossly *inferior* work?
AppleScript has myriad serious flaws, but those are all bugs and design
defects in the language, NOT in its Apple event bridge (application
automation support), which is second to none. JXA's Apple event bridge
is, to be polite, incompetent: missing and crippled reference forms,
broken type mappings, obfuscated commands, inability to resolve
terminology conflicts, outright stupid design decisions (atrocious
`whose` syntax, brain-damaged use of `[...]` syntax for constructing
by-name specifiers), garbage documentation. If you don't see all those
faults and realize what a lie they make of your claim that JXA does
everything AS can, that just means you aren't qualified to make that
judgement in the first place.
If you have a detailed list of JXA issues that you believe are flaws or
bugs, along with example code, please post the reference. It is always
helpful to know what won't work about any piece of software (and ALL
software have their issues/quirks/bugs).
I don't "believe"—I know. I'm world expert, you're not. And sorry, no,
I'm not doing your homework for you. I've given the AS world plenty
freebies already. You can pay me for my time, or learn to do it for
yourself. I spent years teaching myself how this stuff works and
studying the various Apple-owned and third-party bridges to understand
how each of those gets it right and wrong, so I'm sure you can manage a
few hours to get yourself a basic awareness. Check my past posts to the
AS-users list and the MacScripter board discussing JXA, and go search
through the `jxa` posts on Stack Overflow (it won't take you long: there
aren't many).
Ask me politely, and I'll see if I can dredge up all the old emails I
sent to Sal listing JXA's problems and how to fix them (which he mostly
ignored), zip them, and email them directly.
Also, go download JavaScriptOSA
<https://sourceforge.net/projects/appscript/files/> and compare that
against JXA. It may or may not build—it was a quick hack done in a few
weeks and hasn't been updated since 2014—but even just reading its
documentation may enlighten you as to how AE and OSA support should
work. Even in raw form, it still puts JXA to shame.
If you want to compare a production AE bridge that does work right,
Python appscript still builds and runs (as that's what I still use
myself). Aside from not getting terminology from apps with broken
`ascrgdte` handlers (which doesn't affect the apps I use), it is
rock-solid professional-quality software, and the benchmark against
which all other Apple event bridges should be measured, just as
appscript's own AE support was measured, tested, and proven against
AppleScript's own.
has
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