Linked List: June 3, 2008

Tuesday, 3 June 2008

AppleScript Is Broken in Firefox 3 

Speaking of AppleScript, Luis de la Rosa reports that it’s broken in the current “release candidate” of Firefox 3.

The AppleScript English-Likeness Monster 

From the DF archives:

The idea was, and I suppose still is, that AppleScript’s English-like facade frees you from worrying about computer-science-y jargon like classes and objects and properties and commands, and allows you to just say what you mean and have it just work.

But saying what you mean, in English, almost never “just works” and compiles successfully as AppleScript, and so to be productive you still have to understand all of the ways that AppleScript actually works. But this is difficult, because the language syntax is optimized for English-likeness, rather than being optimized for making it clear just what the fuck is actually going on.

AppleScript, as a programming language, is a noble but failed experiment.

Apple’s Script 

Daniel Jalkut looks at the rapid, significant progress Apple is making with JavaScript (w/r/t WebKit’s new SquirrelFish engine) and makes a good suggestion: that Apple replace AppleScript with JavaScript as the default system-wide application scripting language:

It sounds like I just said “Apple should kill AppleScript,” but I didn’t. You see, the Open Scripting Architecture, on which AppleScript runs, is designed from the start to support multiple languages. Think of the “Open Scripting” part of the system as the part that lets a script tell another application to do something. The specific scripting language you use to accomplish the rest is really of no concern whatsoever. Two languages, such as JavaScript and AppleScript, can easily live side by side.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. Or maybe even make a clean break and scrap OSA and introduce a new system.

Apple Still Using Framemaker in Classic 

A year ago, Michael Tsai pointed out that the metadata in some Apple-produced PDFs indicated they were produced using Framemaker on a Mac. Framemaker 6, the final Mac version, only runs in Classic. But Classic, of course, is dead — it has never worked on Intel-based Macs, and was dropped in Leopard even for PowerPC.

DF reader Cory Johnson emailed to point out that Apple’s new Leopard Security Configuration book, released yesterday, was produced in Framemaker 6.0, too. As Tsai wrote last year:

Apple is apparently using some old software and hardware to document its newest product. I totally understand; FrameMaker 6 is a great piece of software, and there’s nothing like it for Mac OS X.

Don’t Talk to Him Before He’s Had His Coffee 

Maybe he uses a straw?

Sweet Decay 

Rands on notebooks:

I don’t need lines on a notebook. I needed lines in 3rd grade when I was learning how to write. I’m good now, thanks.

‘But That’s All’ 

From a ComputerWorld story titled “iPhones Trickle Into the Enterprise”:

“I have nothing against iPhone. It’s great,” says Manjit Singh, CIO at Chiquita Brands International Inc. “But we’re a BlackBerry shop, and I don’t think iPhone brings anything new to the table. It has a great user experience, but that’s all.”

Best corporate IT quote ever.

SquirrelFish 

Geoffrey Garen from Apple’s WebKit team drops a pre-WWDC bombshell:

WebKit’s core JavaScript engine just got a new interpreter, code-named SquirrelFish.

SquirrelFish is fast—much faster than WebKit’s previous interpreter. Check out the numbers. On the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark, SquirrelFish is 1.6 times faster than WebKit’s previous interpreter.

Great news all around, but could be particularly important on the iPhone, where JavaScript performance is most noticeable. Christ, I hope they have T-shirts at WWDC with that logo.