Re: [MacPerl] Interfacing to AppleEvents

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

Tom Pollard <pollard@schrodinger.com> writes:
>On Mon, 16 Jun 1997, Paul J. Schinder wrote:
>> In fact, I'd love for someone to define "scripting language".  The
>> definition would have to be pretty convoluted to exclude MacPerl, IMHO.

> Not at all.  To me, a scripting language is a language in which you can
> naturally specify a sequence of actions, that you would ordinarily execute
> 'by hand', in a 'script'.  [...] Because the Mac has
> no standard command-line interface (it's graphically oriented), these
> models have to be modified for the Mac.  There, AppleScript and Frontier
> are real scripting languages for the Macintosh because they let you
> control AppleScriptable applications in a way that's very closely tied to
> their standard gui interfaces.

That's a plausible argument, but if I remember Frontier correctly, high quality
control of applications is sometimes achieved by writing custom "glue tables",
i.e. libraries. So in that respect, I don't see why MacPerl should be any less
of a scripting language when working with applications such as MacPGP or
Anarchie, for which Chris Nandor has written interface libraries.

It is true, though, that MacPerl currently controls very few applications as
conveniently as this, because it lacks terminology tools and mapping. However,
I see no *syntactic* or *semantic* reasons that would prevent MacPerl from
being as much of a Mac scripting language as Frontier is. AppleScript is
willing to have its syntax determined by the terminology resources, which is
not something that MacPerl can reproduce.

>Under this definition, MacPerl is no more a scripting language than C is. 
>You can just as easily concoct a "DoAppleScript" function in C as in
>MacPerl.

Except that C is not interpreted on the Mac. Interpretation or very fast
compilation to me is another essential property defining a "scripting
language".

>In both cases it's just as foreign to the basic language. 
>Contrast this with Unix shells and Tcl.

Shell scripts have very frequently embedded sed, awk, perl, or m4 scripts,
which are essentially the same technique of embedding different languages to
achieve special effects.

>PS: I'm amazed that Matthias hasn't reprimanded me for starting this
>discussion. 

I never *reprimand* participants in such discussions, I merely *remind* them of
the purpose of the list (or my interpretation thereof) :-).

As for the present discussion, it is valuable to me in shaping ideas about
improving AppleEvent support, which ultimately might be the core competency of
MacPerl to migrate into a yellow box rhapsody perl. Thus, I think the
discussion still has some usefulness left in it if participants are willing to
keep some discipline.

Matthias

-----
Matthias Neeracher   <neeri@iis.ee.ethz.ch>   http://www.iis.ee.ethz.ch/~neeri
 "This comment reminds me of the APL93 meeting where people declared APL to 
  be a thriving, growing language. It's like going to a wake where only the 
  next-of-kin don't seem to be aware that the guest of honor is actually
  dead."  -- Richard J. Gaylord <gaylord-100993020849@mm-mac18.mse.uiuc.edu>









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