News and commentary from the cross-platform scripting community.
	Reviewer's Guide

Feature	Frontier	AppleScript
Looping, if then else, case statement, scoping, sub-procedures.	Yes	Yes
Error recovery is built into the language.	Yes	Yes
Language is integrated with a storage system, allowing easy and efficient access to temporary values (locals) and values that persist between invocations of the script.	Yes	No
Structural symbols such as semicolons, curly braces, begin/end, are not necessary.	Yes	No
Scripts are compiled into an intermediate (p-code) form prior to execution.	Yes	Yes
Variable typing is dynamic, with predictable coercion built into the runtime.	Yes	No
Environment is multi-threaded, allowing multiple scripts to run concurrently.	Yes	No
Scripts can be scheduled to run periodically or at specific times.	Yes	No
Full access to Macintosh OS and file system thru built-in verb set.	Yes	No
Outline-oriented script editor	Yes	No
Scriptable script editor	Yes	No
Full-featured, integrated script editor.	Yes	No
Script editor is scriptable.	Yes	No
Find & Replace within a single script and over groups of scripts. Case insensitive search, wrap around, find language identifiers.	Yes	No
Allows editing of program structure.	Yes	No
Fully integrated script debugger. Set a breakpoint at any statement, step from statement to statement, go into a script call, go out from a script call, trace statement execution, resume normal execution, halt the script.	Yes	No
Examine and edit all local and global variables in the storage system while any number of scripts are running.	Yes	No
When a syntax or runtime error occurs, user can jump to the line where the error occurs, with all script editing features enabled. View all local and global variables before terminating the script.	Yes	No
Has a persistent storage system. Allows script writers to access groups of small and large values as a natural part of the language, efficiently, without having to implement a file format for each script.	Yes	No
The storage system is hierarchic, allowing groups of objects be treated as a single object.	Yes	No
Directly supports the following standard data types: boolean, character, 16-bit signed integers, 32-bit signed integers, floating point numbers, date, text, picture.	Yes	Yes
Allow arbitrary un-typed binary objects to be stored using the same naming scheme as for directly supported types.	Yes	No
Store and run scripts and executable machine code (e.g. XCMDs, UCMDs, OSAXs).	Yes	Yes
Run dialogs created with a resource editing tool such as ResEdit or Resorcerer.	Yes	No
Menu editor allows script writers to add commands to the Finder's menu bar, and to the menu bars of compatible applications (menu sharing).	Yes	No
Scripts can include standard "file dialogs" in their scripts.	Yes	Yes
Graphic interface builder makes it easy for script writers to front-end their scripts with standard user interface elements.	Beta	No
Code is re-usable. Scripts can call other scripts, passing parameters and receiving multiple returned values.	Yes	No
Run "agent" scripts in the background.	Yes	Yes
Scripts can handle incoming Apple Events.	Yes	Yes
Apple Events can be processed while waiting for a response from a message.	Yes	No
Script writers can add new verbs to the language.	Yes	No
C, Pascal programmers can add verbs to the language.	Yes	No
Scripts can be compiled into an intermediate non-human-readable form, and it's possible to distribute scripts in this form.	Yes	No
Software Developer's Kit (SDK) with toolkits and sample code for all architecture features. Full C source code included. Available at no cost, on-line. Royalty-free license for all code.	Yes	No
Supports the client side of all major interapplication protocols including Apple Events, object model, system-level Apple Events, Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) and application-specific models such as Aldus Corp's Additions protocol	Yes	No
Supports recording for applications that are recordable.	Yes	Yes
Is a scriptable application, allowing script writers to customize its feature set.	Yes	No
Supports Open Scripting Architecture (OSA).	Yes	Yes
On-line documentation server. Information about each built-in verb. Hot-link from script editor. Other developers can add documentation for application-specific verbs. It's a scriptable application.	Yes	No
Sample scripts illustrate all commonly used scripting techniques. Distributed on-line.	Yes	No