Re: [MacPerl] I'm in MacWeek

[mark@cheers.jsc.nasa.gov (Mark Manning/Muniz Eng.)]

According to Tom Pollard:
<snip>
> Until it's easier to generate AppleEvents, I'd say it's inaccurate to call
> MacPerl a "scripting language" at all.  Perl (and MacPerl) is a
> full-fledged programming language, certainly.  To my way of thinking it
> qualifies as a scripting language for Unix because it makes it easy to
<snip>

Mmmmmmmmmmm.....  I feel this is splitting hairs.  :-)
After all - a true scripting language would be something
like one of the AI languages where you have, say, a robot,
some blocks, and a ball.  You type in something like "pick
up the ball" and the robot finds the ball and then picks it
up.  Similar to a script that an actor has to follow.  When
the script says "enter stage left" the script doesn't
usually say where to enter the stage except it has to be
from the left.  Nor does the script always say how the
person is supposed to enter the stage (like at a run).
These things can be implied from the character's
description.  Thus, to me, a scripting language would
accept commands such as:

	whereis "myfile.dat";

or

	canyouget "myfile.dat"?
	if not then canyoutellme whatisthematter?

or some such.  :-)

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