Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Brent's Screenshot-Scripting Windows

Author:Dave Winer
Posted:12/21/1998; 7:33:31 AM
Topic:Brent's Screenshot-Scripting Windows
Msg #:1549 (In response to 1548)
Prev/Next:1548 / 1550

Alan, that's subject to debate, and of course this is a good place to do that, and it's not really Microsoft's concern how we wire up to COM, that's our job. Also, here's a pointer to the screen shot. Since this page is certain to be read many times, I want to be sure everyone knows what we're talking about:

http://madrid.userland.com/images/envScreenShot.gif

I think we made the right choice. In AppleScript terms, imagine if instead of supporting the Apple Event object model, imagine if we had just allowed little bits of AppleScript code in the object database, and saw them as glue scripts that connect the Frontier environment up to the Apple scripting world?

Of course as scripters we want *everything* but realize that I, as the manager of this team, have to balance one direction against all others. Supporting the Apple Event Object Model was hugely expensive expressed in terms of the features we didn't do because we invested heavily in trying to be a system-level scripting system for the Mac.

If I had it to do over again, I would have used AppleScript to glue the apps into the Frontier environment. That takes us completely out of the loop for system scripting. Developer evangelism on that scale is totally out of our reach. Only a platform vendor like Apple or Microsoft can do that level of evangelism.

I learned that system-level scripting really is the province of the platform vendor. Apple made a heroic effort to include us in the system scripting story for the Mac, and of course we were heroic too, but the outcome was not very good.

Inevitably, the platform vendor will shift directions very often, according to their own needs. The more insulated from this we are the better, so a very high-level low-tech interface for glue scripts, would work the best for all. That's the philosophy behind the design of the COM client scripting interface.

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