Re: [MacPerl] Interfacing to AppleEvents

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

Tom Pollard <pollard@schrodinger.com> writes:
>On Sat, 14 Jun 1997, Chris Nandor wrote:
>> No, no.  MacPerl's Apple Event support is wonderful.  I said exactly that
>> the INTERFACE to the Apple Events is weak.  The user/programmer interface.

Agreed. There is no AppleEvent terminology support, partically because of
the work involved in implementing, and to an even more important part
because I have no coherent design concept. Once we come up with a coherent
set of rules for mapping a terminology resource into a a set of perl
objects, I'm sure we'll manage to implement that mapping (I say "we", because
right now, I have no plans to act on this issue unless others come up with
substantial design input).

>Until it's easier to generate AppleEvents, I'd say it's inaccurate to call
>MacPerl a "scripting language" at all.

Doesn't AppleScript and Frontier embedding make Perl a scripting language ?

>For MacPerl to become a useful scripting language for the Mac, I think
>it's basically going to have to become an AppleScript interpreter in
>addition to what it is now.

That's what MacPerl::DoAppleScript and Mac::OSA do. The latter also does
Frontier and probably even QuicKeys.

>AppleScript is the closest thing on the Mac
>to a command line interface and it's the common language which all Mac
>applications speak.

Agreed.

>If you accept that, then it would make sense for the
>'system' command and the backtick notation to interpret their arguments as
>AppleScript in MacPerl.  

I don't see how that would be an advantage over MacPerl::DoAppleScript.

Matthias

-----
Matthias Neeracher   <neeri@iis.ee.ethz.ch>   http://www.iis.ee.ethz.ch/~neeri
  "Lord grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. The 
   courage to change the things I can. And the wisdom to hide the bodies 
   of the people I had to kill because they pissed me off"

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