AppleScript and REALbasic
05/06/08 22:49 Filed in: Opinion
It was noted recently that Apple has made huge
improvements with Javascript with webkit. See this
article that talks about the
authors opinion that Apple should extend OSA
(Open Scripting Architecture) to not just
AppleScript but to include Javascript. I’d take
that one step further and say that RBScript
should be added as well.
I know it sounds crazy, but the author makes the
argument that since a lot of low level type people
know enough java now to make this feasible. Meh. I
don’t necessarily agree with him, but I’ll go with
the flow for a second. If you can get javascript to
work like (or better than) Applescript then I’d say
it’s a no brainer.
I’m sure the AppleScript folks at Apple would disagree with that but everytime I look at AppleScript all I get is confused and then mad. Confused because it doesn’t seem to follow logical assumptions. After a few hours of fruitless searching on the internet I end up giving up mad. This is why I’ve never actually implemented AppleScript in any REALbasic application even though it’s been on my list of things to do for years.
My opinion is that since AppleScript has so few resources on the web it’s a failed scripting language. Without a thousand examples of how to do something most people will give up and since I’m not an average user I’d say that most people just give up. People not using AppleScript is probably the biggest reason why Apple came up with Automator. They needed to dumb it down because people didn’t get it.
Since I’m a REALbasic developer I think using RBScript or some variant thereof could be just as valuable. I would argue that part of the popularity of VB6 was that all the people that could use VBA (Visual Basic For Applications) to create some additional GUI goodies for Excel or Word and even the dreadded Access could switch over to VB6 and create ‘real’ applications. So with a little scripting knowledge one could start off doing insanely simple stuff and move to more complicated stuff. BASIC is, well, basic and easy to understand.
Call VBA the gateway drug of programming languages.
So why not REALbasic as a scripting language? Well, Apple would have to license or buy it from Real Software. I don’t see that happening. Apple wants everyone to use Cocoa and it strikes me as a long time Apple user as an ‘admission of failure’ from the folks in Cupertino. I don’t see it happening anytime soon but then I’d love to be wrong. It would make REALbasic an awesome choice for beginners which is a sweet spot for RS anyway.
Thoughts?
I’m sure the AppleScript folks at Apple would disagree with that but everytime I look at AppleScript all I get is confused and then mad. Confused because it doesn’t seem to follow logical assumptions. After a few hours of fruitless searching on the internet I end up giving up mad. This is why I’ve never actually implemented AppleScript in any REALbasic application even though it’s been on my list of things to do for years.
My opinion is that since AppleScript has so few resources on the web it’s a failed scripting language. Without a thousand examples of how to do something most people will give up and since I’m not an average user I’d say that most people just give up. People not using AppleScript is probably the biggest reason why Apple came up with Automator. They needed to dumb it down because people didn’t get it.
Since I’m a REALbasic developer I think using RBScript or some variant thereof could be just as valuable. I would argue that part of the popularity of VB6 was that all the people that could use VBA (Visual Basic For Applications) to create some additional GUI goodies for Excel or Word and even the dreadded Access could switch over to VB6 and create ‘real’ applications. So with a little scripting knowledge one could start off doing insanely simple stuff and move to more complicated stuff. BASIC is, well, basic and easy to understand.
Call VBA the gateway drug of programming languages.
So why not REALbasic as a scripting language? Well, Apple would have to license or buy it from Real Software. I don’t see that happening. Apple wants everyone to use Cocoa and it strikes me as a long time Apple user as an ‘admission of failure’ from the folks in Cupertino. I don’t see it happening anytime soon but then I’d love to be wrong. It would make REALbasic an awesome choice for beginners which is a sweet spot for RS anyway.
Thoughts?