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: Thu, 9 Nov 2017 18:43:16 +0900
Thomas,
Thank you very much for your feedback.
I have a copy of the PDF language documentation. I find it quite helpful but
lacking as far as practicing with real cases is concerned. I am upset about the
"definitive guide" because it is clearly advertised as a book for new AS users,
which it is definitely not. It exclusively caters to experienced users who need
to find very specific information.
I'm now trying to find a way to order "Learn Applescript" from Apress now,
which my local bookstore can't seem to be able to obtain, and I don't want to
use Amazon... :-(
As for Emacs vs TW/BBEdit, I understand what you are saying. I am not
*confortable* with Emacs by any stretch of the imagination. I'd rather stick to
TextEdit if only it had regular expressions (the RTF editor in Xcode does but
it is not a very pleasing experience to use it as a stand alone text editor).
I've used BBEdit Lite since 95, then moved to TW, then bought a licence for
BBEdit a few years back, but I find Emacs a fascinating piece of software,
especially because before being a text editor, it is also a Lisp virtual
machine, and I'm very attracted to Lisp, for reasons I can't really explain. So
Emacs is like a pass time, but I do all my real text editing in BBEdit.
And here is one reason why it is not likely to change soon:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-gnu-emacs/2017-11/msg00042.html
Jean-Christophe Helary
-----------------------------------------------
@brandelune http://mac4translators.blogspot.com
> On Nov 9, 2017, at 18:03, Thomas Fischer <email@hidden> wrote:
>
> Dear Jean-Christophe,
>
> I learned most of what I know about AppleScript by studying the AppleScript
> Language Guide
> (https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/AppleScript/Conceptual/AppleScriptLangGuide/
>
> <https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/AppleScript/Conceptual/AppleScriptLangGuide/>),
> which unfortunately doesn’t seem to be available from Apple as a single PDF
> document anymore. Older versions are available on the internet
> (https://applescriptlibrary.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/applescriptlanguageguide-2013.pdf
>
> <https://applescriptlibrary.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/applescriptlanguageguide-2013.pdf>
> might be the newest one). Only much later an for specific subtleties I
> turned to "AppleScript, the definitive guide“, which helped me further along.
>
> And this is somewhat off-topic: If you are comfortable with emacs, by any
> means, stick to it. I am not, and am using for 20 years or so TextWrangler or
> BBEdit, which is a powerful text editor that integrates Perl, shell scripts
> (bash etc.) and several other languages as well as AppleScript. Since it
> sports a standard Apple-style GUI I find it much easier to work with than
> emacs.
>
> All the best
> Thomas
>
>> Am 09.11.2017 um 00:32 schrieb Jean-Christophe Helary
>> <email@hidden <mailto:email@hidden>>:
>>
>> Jim,
>>
>> Thank you for the suggestions.
>>
>>> Have you been through AppleScript: Topics
>>> <https://www.macosxautomation.com/applescript/learn.html> at
>>> macosxautomation.com <http://macosxautomation.com/>?
>>
>> Not yet :-)
>>
>>> IMO, this is one of the best introductions to AppleScript. I believe it
>>> will meet, or exceed, your experience below with Perl.
>>
>> Especially considering that I never had a real use for Perl in the end.
>>
>>> There is also a lot of good stuff here:
>>> MacScripter / unScripted
>>> <http://macscripter.net/viewforum.php?id=31>(AppleScript Tutorials)
>>
>> I'll check.
>>
>> Today I'm left with 2 solutions for automating my stuff: Applescript for
>> almost everything I need, and emacs for writing (and more, but only bits by
>> bits). No need to emphasize the fact that they both are strange bests to
>> ride and that they certainly provide for most of the stimulation I need on
>> any single day, if not more...
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