Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!lai
From: lai@Apple.COM (Ed Lai)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system
Subject: Re: User scripting in 7.x?
Message-ID: <50266@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 14 Mar 91 19:25:59 GMT
References: <27DF36E7.19478@orion.oac.uci.edu> <1991Mar14.142609.17874@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Organization: Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, CA
Lines: 37

In article <1991Mar14.142609.17874@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> dorner@pequod.cso.uiuc.edu (Steve Dorner) writes:
>In article <27DF36E7.19478@orion.oac.uci.edu> bdugan@teri.bio.uci.edu (Bill Dugan) writes:
>>something called "user scripting" which to me sounded like the closest thing
>>to a CLI available for the Macintosh, although something more akin to
>>Macromaker seems more likely.
>
>There is a CLI for the Macintosh; the MPW shell.  You can say things like:
>
>WriteNow foo*
>
>('Course, you don't use '*', you use option-x.  This is an important
>human-factors issue; it forces your hands into awkward positions to
>reduce RMS :-))
>
>I infer from other's comments that the user scripting will be more like
>HyperTalk than anything else.  Whether it will have goodies like pattern
>matching, I haven't heard.  HyperTalk doesn't (as of 1.x; haven't looked
>much at 2.0 yet), if that is any indication.
>--
>Steve Dorner, U of Illinois Computing Services Office
>Internet: s-dorner@uiuc.edu  UUCP: uunet!uiucuxc!uiuc.edu!s-dorner

Of course most people would prefer a scripting language that looks like
HyperTalk than MPW scripts, so it is likely that Apple's scripting language
will look more than HyperTalk than MPW scripts. However that does not prevent
you from using MPW scripts in MPW (or any another scripting language) as your
own personal scripting language provided that your scripting language can send
AppleEvents. So in the case of MPW, you need a MPW tool to send AppleEvents.
Such a tool may be available in developer CD or channel like that.

/* Disclaimer: All statments and opinions expressed are my own */
/* Edmund K. Lai                                               */
/* Apple Computer, MS37-UP                                     */
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