Re: [MacPerl] Controlling ToolServer from MacPerl

[Brian McNett <webmaster@mycoinfo.com>]

> I think this will make Chris very happy: "It's never *necessary* to use
> Mac::Glue, but it's *ALWAYS* useful".  Apple Events are written and
> designed to have a user interface to them - they are not intended to be
> easy to use on their own.  Like sendmail.conf & md4 - but not as
> pathological.  The only time I can think that a glue would be unhelpful
> would be for an application that is AppleEvent aware, but has no dictionary.

Different definitions of "necessary" and "useful," I suppose.  By 
necessary, I mean "no similar functionality exists", not "I could always 
create raw AppleEvents if I wanted."  By "useful," I meant "If I build 
it, will other's use it," not "is Mac::Glue useful for this kinda stuff?"

If it were just for my personal use, I'd fire-up BBEdit, have MacPerl 
return the resource compiler code via AEvents to there, and pass it to 
ToolServer with a single mouse-click.  However, I'm planning this thing 
to go far-and-wide, to people who may not have BBEdit, or even a Mac.  
This means that the Mac-specifc code has to degrade gracefully to code 
that provides similar functionality without the Mac-specifics.  I can use 
Mac::Glue to build an interface, in the context of a conditional, to (in 
the context of a further conditional) call ToolServer, and execute Rez on 
the program's output file.  In the event that the second conditional 
fails, I can have the program stop at writing the resource compiler 
sources, and in the event that the first conditional fails, I can have 
the program not write those resources to begin with.  All of the above 
could be set by a preference file, yes.

However, if you don't know how deep the water is, diving in head-first 
probably isn't a very good idea.  If there's some other functionality 
that allows me to do this WITHOUT recourse to Mac::Glue (as nice as it 
is), thus rendering the problem "shallow," I'm all for it.  Then I can 
wade, rather than dive, which I'm not very good at anyway.

But yes,  I suppose pulling in Mac:Glue (The awesome-big 16 inch 
artillary of MacPerl IAC!), would be cause for Chris to smile.

--B

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