Michael Pease Prefers English
From Michael Pease, mp2@myhome.net, in response to Alan Baer on English Syntax:I strenuously disagree with Alan Baer regarding English-like scripting languages.
The problem most people like me (scripters, not programmers) face is translating our logic into something the computer understands and can execute for us. We are fluent in English, not symbolism. We know what we want to do; we just need a simple, clear way to instruct our computers. We definitely do not need (expensive, proprietary) compilers, "development systems" etc.
HyperTalk is the best way for us to do this. AppleScript is second. Anything C-like or Pascal-like orBasic-like or assembler-like or Perl-like is way too symbolic and arbitrary. Learning curve == way too steep.
Open file theFile
Read from file theFile until end
put it into vFileContents
Close file theFileI can look at that code and know exactly what it does. As far as Alan's examples, I MUCH prefer the AppleScript!
word 2 of line 3 of cd field 1
or
story 1 of text box 2 of page 3 of document 1
That's English, and I know exactly what it means! But it's also programming code, and instructs my computer to do what I want it to. I don't care about elegance, morality, etc., in programming code. I need to go from zero to 30 in 20 minutes, not from zero to 180 in 2 years or never.
In fact, I say every programmer and every university should work on adding to the HyperTalk language, expanding and refining the English-like structure. Forget all of the other languages -- only specialists can utilize them. If everyone worked on this English-like language, it could pretty much be perfected in short order, and regular people could use it on a daily basis. All they would need to know is what they really want, which I guess is the real problem. That and the arrogance and greed of "real programmers" and their managers.
Michael Pease
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