Re: [MacPerl] MacPerl OSA Component released

[Matthias Ulrich Neeracher <neeri@iis.ee.ethz.ch>]

Frank San Filippo <frank@w3-design.com> writes:
>How would one use this, and for what sorts of applications? I only have a
>general idea that OSA languages can be used to script any OSA-compliant app

This is sort of true.

>-- does this mean we can use MacPerl to directly control apps that have
>Apple Event support?

You don't even need the OSA component for that. Plain MacPerl (BigMacPerl for
68K) already does that (look at the :ext:Mac:AppleEvents:t:AESender.t script
for a tiny example).

OSA languages often fill sort of "glue" functions, i.e., the programs do behind
the scenes work, gluing together capabilities of applications. So you could
use MacPerl for AppleScriptish tasks, when you don;t want to start the
MacPerl application just to do a task.

If you embed MacPerl OSA scripts, it should also be possible to do
multithreading, although I have to admit that I haven't tried yet. Presumably
this would make MacPerl OSA useable for somewhat more demanding CGI server
scenarios than the application. However, the interfaces will be different. If
anyone is seriously interested in this and knowledgeable about the Frontier CGI
interface, I'd welcome a collaboration on this point.

Matthias

-----
Matthias Neeracher   <neeri@iis.ee.ethz.ch>   http://www.iis.ee.ethz.ch/~neeri
  "And that's why I am going to turn this world upside down, and make
   of it a fire so *bright* that someone real will notice"
                                -- Vernor Vinge, _Tatja Grimm's World_