Respecting the Power of AppleScript

In the past, especially the early years of its genesis, AppleScript was often given a bad rap. Some would say it was only a script language, not a programming language. Others referred to it as buggy, slow, or weak. Some even predicted its obsolescence once Apple's OpenDoc technology emerged. Ironically, it was OpenDoc that was scraped in 1997.

Sometimes the criticism would come from programmers who promoted costly development in other languages, while other times, it came from developers or users who were "Windows centric" and looked down on the Mac and Apple. In this age of iPods, iPhones, and the witty "Mac versus PC" commercials, it may be difficult to believe this, but at the time, it was quite fashionable to predict doom and gloom for Apple and all of her wares, both hard and soft.

Admittedly, at least some of the criticism may have been earned, at least at first. There were bugs and speed issues in the early years, but the same was true of the Mac OS. lt relied a lot on third-party scriptable applications, which were slow to embrace it. But slowly, over time, the bugs were fixed, the computers became faster, and the scriptable applications began appearing everywhere. The language made the transition to the new and modern OS X and continued to evolve and to embrace new technologies.

AppleScript survived and, more importantly, it flourished. It won awards, was the focus of "return on investment" studies, and finally silenced the critics. Today a skillful developer can automate a large portion of a workflow, creating an unprecedented boom in efficiency.

It is finally time that AppleScript gets the respect it is due as a truly unique, powerful, and revolutionary technology that remains hard pressed to find an adequate rival on any platform. It is easy to learn, easy to use, and can do almost anything. It has been used to build countless catalogs, brochures, and factsheets. It has processed images, text, numbers, and more. It has been the workhorse of the computer age, doing the heavy lifting between applications, processes, and users. All indications show it will continue doing so for the foreseeable future.