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Applescript, Aggghh!!

22nd February 2005, 01:20 pm

Applescript, Aggghh!!: “

Driving Sideways reports:

Applescript, Aggghh!!

AppleScript, in case you didn’t know, is Apple’s operating system scripting language. And through some mad genius science you can now create standalone applications with it through AppleScript Studio. Great! So now I can easily create an application that will automate some of my tasks. Woo hoo!

The only problem is that the AppleScript language itself, which purports to be this laymens language, is actually a convoluted painful nightmare to work with.

For example. I was stuck for an hour on a debugging statement that I had that printing the name of a file that I got from the Open File Dialog. Time after time I tried to print this thing out but I would get some impentrable ‘NSCouldNotCreateScript’ error. What does that mean? So I Googled it and one poor bastard out in Slobovia had it once, maybe, couldn’t figure out what it meant and went on. Turns out the secret ju-ju was to add ‘as string’ on the end of the statement.

Applescript is pure ass. No other language makes a programmer feel so stupid. And what’s even more insulting is that it’s supposed to be a ‘for dummies’ type language.

I second that. AppleScript should be the magic sauce that makes Mac OS X really shine. But every single time I’ve tried to integrate two apps or create some automated workflow, I have spent way too much time on mundane things. Each app has its own ideas of nouns and verbs, and I spend too much time just trying to figure out the correct object specifications.

Then again, I am disappointed when apps don’t include any AppleScript, such as MacJournal. Go figure…

“

(Via musings.)

I totally, completely, absolutely agree. All I have to say is: Automator automator automator automator automator!

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One Comment

  1. Camels in the Mist » Blog Archive » Grains of Sand:

    [...] Apple: I stopped being able to count the number of programming languages i know on a single hand many years ago. Why then, does your applescript that has [quote: http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/applescript/ “Easy-to-learn English-like syntax.”, read like an ESL comp sci TA come to tutorial after dropping acid? It’s freaking hard to learn. The fact that you can litter a script with arbitrary articles (the word “the” is completely superfluous, as far as i can tell) inspires more confusion, head-on-desk-banging, vomit, and hair loss, than anything that resembles confidence. Your documentation also sucks. Figure it out. plskthxbai. [...]

    6 September 2006, 3:56 pm

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