Re: Reading "AppleScript, the definitive guide"
Re: Reading "AppleScript, the definitive guide"
- Subject: Re: Reading "AppleScript, the definitive guide"
- From: Jean-Christophe Helary <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2017 12:30:58 +0900
Thank you Chuck for the feedback.
I'm hoping "Learning Applescript" from Apress will be at least marginally
better.
I remember when I learned Perl, it was the 2nd edition of Learning Perl, I
think, also from O'Reilly and they had a chapter "A stroll through Perl" (or
something like that, that they dumped in later editions...), that was about 50
pages and where you actually learned and practiced all the basics of the
language with a practical and domain specific application, and from there you
could start writing your stuff and check the rest of the book for reference.
That was excellent.
SICP is a different beast, it is not about Scheme per se, it just happens to
use it. So you're not learning the language, but learning the concepts behind
computer science, which is way bigger, but the very incremental approach is
what makes the book excellent (mind you, I did not make it beyond the first or
beginning of second chapter because I was not looking for a CS introduction,
but the books gave me wonderful insights about Scheme and Lisp in general). But
here again you have a domain specific application since at the end you end up
building a compiler.
I also liked Ansi Common Lisp by Paul Graham. Here again, same incremental
approach and same general but domain specific orientation that helps you
understand the fundamentals. You get the basic blocs first with practical
examples, you exercise, then you generalize and you cover the language almost
fully by the end, and in the case of that book you even end up implementing the
language yourself. Tell me about a powerful way to learn!
When Neuburg's book was released, maybe the Apple documentation was non
existent. I doubt it. But even though I read the first dozen pages with lots of
interest, because it kind of seemed related to what I was doing and it was
witty, in the end it totally lost me. I understand that the *intricacies* of
scope are important but if scope is a fundamental concept, its intricacies and
quirks must be left in a later part of the book where advanced questions are
covered.
Really, it's like cognitive sciences and learning processes as a field of study
have never penetrated the realm of computers.
Jean-Christophe Helary
-----------------------------------------------
@brandelune http://mac4translators.blogspot.com
> On Nov 8, 2017, at 10:23, Chuck 5566 <email@hidden> wrote:
>
> FWIW, I have professionally used many computer languages and in every case
> but one, I have not found there to be one book that was truly definitive.
> For each language I’ve used, I have about a half-dozen books, because not one
> contains all the answers. And for each new language, I’ve started with a
> “for dummies” or “learn in 24hours” type of book.
>
> This is not meant to be a critique of any one book. I come out of the shadows
> to pass this along in the hopes you’ll not get too discouraged and will keep
> plodding on. :-)
>
> (And I’ve not needed any book for that one language only because I’ve coded
> in it for over 30 years.)
_______________________________________________
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.
AppleScript-Users mailing list (email@hidden)
Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription:
Archives: http://lists.apple.com/archives/applescript-users
This email sent to email@hidden