[#43299] Ruby implementation Q's — justinj@... (Justin Johnson)

Apologies in advance for this meaty posting:

30 messages 2002/07/01

[#43358] (0..3) == (0...4) returning false? — Massimiliano Mirra <list@...>

Is there a reason for two ranges holding the same extension but

41 messages 2002/07/02

[#43416] Segmentation Fault - Ruby Garbage Collection — James Eric Birmingham <avenger@...>

During load testing of our Ruby program, we have been getting

22 messages 2002/07/02

[#43570] self_parent — Tom Sawyer <transami@...>

i was wondering what others thought of the idea of having a built in

47 messages 2002/07/04
[#43571] Re: self_parent — David Alan Black <dblack@...> 2002/07/04

Hello --

[#43584] Re: self_parent — Tom Sawyer <transami@...> 2002/07/04

all my real examples are pretty large, mostly to do with using the REXML

[#43628] Re: self_parent — Massimiliano Mirra <list@...> 2002/07/05

On Fri, Jul 05, 2002 at 07:49:09AM +0900, Tom Sawyer wrote:

[#43662] Re: self_parent — Tom Sawyer <transami@...> 2002/07/05

On Fri, 2002-07-05 at 05:31, Massimiliano Mirra wrote:

[#43705] Re: self_parent — Austin Ziegler <austin@...> 2002/07/05

On Sat, 6 Jul 2002 03:32:11 +0900, Tom Sawyer wrote:

[#43713] Re: self_parent — Michael Campbell <michael_s_campbell@...> 2002/07/05

> In ten years of professional software development, a good chunk of

[#43602] is there a better string.each? — Tyler Spivey <tspivey8@...>

well, i have a bit of a problem:

98 messages 2002/07/05
[#43606] Re: is there a better string.each? — Tom Sawyer <transami@...> 2002/07/05

a = "canada"

[#43644] Re: is there a better string.each? — Sean Russell <ser@...> 2002/07/05

Tom Sawyer wrote:

[#43645] Re: is there a better string.each? — Michael Campbell <michael_s_campbell@...> 2002/07/05

> > thought it was strange myself. personally i'd like it if String

[#43707] Re: is there a better string.each? — Sean Russell <ser@...> 2002/07/05

Hal E. Fulton wrote:

[#43714] Re: is there a better string.each? — Michael Campbell <michael_s_campbell@...> 2002/07/05

[#43774] Re: is there a better string.each? — Sean Russell <ser@...> 2002/07/06

Michael Campbell wrote:

[#43805] Re: is there a better string.each? — Michael Campbell <michael_s_campbell@...> 2002/07/07

[#43848] Re: is there a better string.each? — "Hal E. Fulton" <hal9000@...> 2002/07/07

----- Original Message -----

[#43611] Powered by Ruby (logo) — Davey <davey@...>

Hey,

23 messages 2002/07/05

[#43780] passing to objects at the bottom — Tom Sawyer <transami@...>

i have a chain of objects such that one object contains another which

17 messages 2002/07/06

[#43795] Pre-RCR... nil.empty? — Dave Thomas <Dave@...>

34 messages 2002/07/07
[#43799] Re: Pre-RCR... nil.empty? — David Alan Black <dblack@...> 2002/07/07

Hi --

[#43807] unshifting a directory onto ENV['PATH'] — Bil Kleb <W.L.Kleb@...>

Is there a more elegant (compact?) method than

16 messages 2002/07/07

[#43916] How to determine EOF with sysread? — Jim Freeze <jim@...>

Hi:

13 messages 2002/07/08

[#43943] SV: SV: [ANN] Archive 0.2 — Thomas Søndergaard <tsondergaard@...>

DQo+IFRoYW5rcy4gOi0pIEknbSBub3QgdGVycmlibHkgaW4gaHVycnkgdG8gYWRkIFppcCBzdXBw

13 messages 2002/07/08

[#43944] Re: is there a better string.each? — George Ogata <g_ogata@...>

Hi,

45 messages 2002/07/08
[#43959] Re: is there a better string.each? — Austin Ziegler <austin@...> 2002/07/08

On Mon, 8 Jul 2002 20:43:57 +0900, George Ogata wrote:

[#43949] for ... else ... end — "Kontra, Gergely" <kgergely@...>

Hi!

45 messages 2002/07/08
[#44103] Re: for ... else ... end — Sean Russell <ser@...> 2002/07/09

Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:

[#44107] Re: for ... else ... end — "Kontra, Gergely" <kgergely@...> 2002/07/09

For the keyword war: (silly, dummy example)

[#43957] Redirecting standard error — Gilles Filippini <gilles.filippini@...>

Hi,

13 messages 2002/07/08

[#44019] String#split converts string args to regexes -- ? — David Alan Black <dblack@...>

Hello --

41 messages 2002/07/08
[#44104] Re: String#split converts string args to regexes -- ? — kasal@... (Stepan Kasal) 2002/07/09

Hallo,

[#44137] Re: String#split converts string args to regexes -- ? — matz@... (Yukihiro Matsumoto) 2002/07/09

Hi,

[#44209] Re: String#split converts string args to regexes -- ? — kasal@... (Stepan Kasal) 2002/07/10

Hallo,

[#44212] Re: String#split converts string args to regexes -- ? — David Alan Black <dblack@...> 2002/07/10

Hi --

[#44265] spliter of for...each: looping — Tom Sawyer <transami@...>

when looping, using each, i find i am often wonton of a few nice

24 messages 2002/07/10
[#44266] Re: spliter of for...each: looping — David Alan Black <dblack@...> 2002/07/10

Hello --

[#44268] Re: spliter of for...each: looping — Tom Sawyer <transami@...> 2002/07/10

hmmm...

[#44270] Re: spliter of for...each: looping — David Alan Black <dblack@...> 2002/07/10

Hi --

[#44272] Re: spliter of for...each: looping — Tom Sawyer <transami@...> 2002/07/10

david,

[#44275] Re: spliter of for...each: looping — David Alan Black <dblack@...> 2002/07/10

Hi --

[#44282] Re: spliter of for...each: looping — Tom Sawyer <transami@...> 2002/07/11

each_with_nindex, rocking! i'll throw that in my library, for sure.

[#44289] Re: spliter of for...each: looping — David Alan Black <dblack@...> 2002/07/11

Hi --

[#44296] RE: Commercial Support for Ruby — "Berger, Daniel" <djberge@...>

> Hi Everyone,

18 messages 2002/07/11

[#44312] opengl — Tom Sawyer <transami@...>

can any one give me some help installing the opengl interface library? i

22 messages 2002/07/11
[#44316] Re: opengl — Dossy <dossy@...> 2002/07/11

On 2002.07.12, Tom Sawyer <transami@transami.net> wrote:

[#44320] Re: opengl — Tom Sawyer <transami@...> 2002/07/11

just did apt-get mesag-dev. still the same thing:

[#44387] Dynamic Methods — "John" <nojgoalbyspam@...>

Hi all,

29 messages 2002/07/12
[#44402] Re: Dynamic Methods — "John" <nojgoalbyspam@...> 2002/07/12

Wow! Thanks Dave!

[#44408] Re: Dynamic Methods — Michael Campbell <michael_s_campbell@...> 2002/07/12

[#44415] Re: Dynamic Methods — "John" <nojgoalbyspam@...> 2002/07/13

> (What do you propose if more than one possibility matches, by the

[#44425] hey! where's #count? — Tom Sawyer <transami@...>

i went to count the number of equal objects in an array and discoverd

24 messages 2002/07/13
[#44515] Re: hey! where's #count? — "Christoph" <chr_news@...> 2002/07/14

"Tom Sawyer" wrote

[#44516] Re: hey! where's #count? — Philipp Meier <meier@...> 2002/07/14

On Sun, Jul 14, 2002 at 11:41:55PM +0900, Christoph wrote:

[#44517] RE: hey! where's #count? — "Christoph" <crippel@...> 2002/07/14

[#44482] instance_eval — "John" <nojgoalbyspam@...>

Hi all,

14 messages 2002/07/13

[#44618] RE: TkText no -textvariable workaround? — "J.Hawkesworth" <J.Hawkesworth@...>

I think what Tom is after is a neat way to have the widget's display

41 messages 2002/07/16
[#44621] RE: TkText no -textvariable workaround? — Tom Sawyer <transami@...> 2002/07/16

On Tue, 2002-07-16 at 09:08, J.Hawkesworth wrote:

[#44622] Re: TkText no -textvariable workaround? — Dossy <dossy@...> 2002/07/16

On 2002.07.17, Tom Sawyer <transami@transami.net> wrote:

[#44626] Re: TkText no -textvariable workaround? — Tom Sawyer <transami@...> 2002/07/16

actually, Dossy, your post was a bit helpful. what i'm after also sort

[#44628] Re: TkText no -textvariable workaround? — Dossy <dossy@...> 2002/07/16

On 2002.07.17, Tom Sawyer <transami@transami.net> wrote:

[#44734] Syntax "surprise" — "David Douthitt" <DDouthitt@...>

I don't know if this qualifies as a real "surprise", but it was to me. I h=

39 messages 2002/07/17

[#44788] Selling ruby to my boss — Francis Hwang <sera@...>

So I've just started working as the sole programmer at a non-profit

22 messages 2002/07/18

[#44829] Q: "print usage_msg, exit 1 if error_flag" does not work — kwatch@... (kwatch)

Hi,

15 messages 2002/07/18
[#44831] Re: Q: "print usage_msg, exit 1 if error_flag" does not work — ts <decoux@...> 2002/07/18

>>>>> "k" == kwatch <kwatch@lycos.jp> writes:

[#44832] Re: Q: "print usage_msg, exit 1 if error_flag" does not work — Hugh Sasse Staff Elec Eng <hgs@...> 2002/07/18

On Thu, 18 Jul 2002, ts wrote:

[#44833] Re: Q: "print usage_msg, exit 1 if error_flag" does not work — ts <decoux@...> 2002/07/18

>>>>> "H" == Hugh Sasse Staff Elec Eng <hgs@dmu.ac.uk> writes:

[#44855] Ruby in MacOSX 10.2 (Jaguar) — Luc Heinrich <lucsky@...>

It now seems to be "official" that Ruby will come by default with the next iteration of MacOSX.

12 messages 2002/07/18

[#44893] amrita 0.8.1 — Taku Nakajima <tnakajima@...>

Amrita is a a html/xhtml template library for Ruby.

22 messages 2002/07/19

[#44920] Objective C backend for Ruby? — "James F.Hranicky" <jfh@...>

While people are kicking around ideas for new backends for Ruby,

24 messages 2002/07/19

[#44985] GUI's and the Rouge, Part II — Tom Sawyer <transami@...>

in part one of this message i mention the problem of non-POLS and

72 messages 2002/07/20
[#45161] Re: GUI's and the Rouge, Part II — patrick-may@... (Patrick May) 2002/07/23

Ned Konz <ned@bike-nomad.com> wrote in message news:<200207201125.13528@ned.bike-nomad.com>...

[#45241] Re: GUI's and the Rouge, Part III (yes, finally) 1/2 — Tom Sawyer <transami@...> 2002/07/23

a bit of an intro: my original thought on the matter of making a

[#45246] Re: GUI's and the Rouge, Part III (yes, finally) 1/2 — Albert Wagner <alwagner@...> 2002/07/24

Still looks like plain old Model-View-Controller to me. You've split the

[#45282] RE: GUI's and the Rouge, Part III (yes, finally) 1/2 — "Curt Hibbs" <curt@...> 2002/07/24

Tom Sawyer wrote:

[#45287] RE: GUI's and the Rouge, Part III (yes, finally) 1/2 — Steve Tuckner <STUCKNER@...> 2002/07/24

What about WX-Windows. There is no ruby bindings for it, but would that fit

[#45300] RE: GUI's and the Rouge, Part III (yes, finally) 1/2 — Tom Sawyer <transami@...> 2002/07/24

On Wed, 2002-07-24 at 08:39, Steve Tuckner wrote:

[#45314] Re: GUI's and the Rouge, Part III (yes, finally) 1/2 — Wayne Vucenic <wvucenic@...> 2002/07/24

Hi Tom,

[#45364] RE: GUI's and the Rouge, Part III (yes, finally) 1/2 — "Curt Hibbs" <curt@...> 2002/07/25

Wayne Vucenic wrote:

[#45416] wxWindows for ruby — "repeater" <repeater@...> 2002/07/25

> Wayne Vucenic wrote:

[#44994] Learning Japanese — "John" <nojgoalbyspam@...>

Inspired to learn to read Japanese due to a lot of information on Ruby being

12 messages 2002/07/20

[#45044] Install troubles — Jim Freeze <jfreeze@...>

Hi:

13 messages 2002/07/21
[#45051] Re: Install troubles — Chris Gehlker <gehlker@...> 2002/07/21

On 7/21/02 12:13 PM, "Jim Freeze" <jfreeze@freebsdportal.com> wrote:

[#45085] ruby-dev summary 17696-17713 — Minero Aoki <aamine@...>

Hi all,

28 messages 2002/07/22
[#45090] rdtool and rdoc — Dave Thomas <Dave@...> 2002/07/22

Minero Aoki <aamine@mx.edit.ne.jp> writes:

[#45118] Re: rdtool and rdoc — "David Douthitt" <DDouthitt@...>

I took a look at your comparison page. I've not used either, but some thin=

16 messages 2002/07/22

[#45136] Strings and member-operators — the Bare <grrr@...>

Hi:

22 messages 2002/07/22
[#45140] Re: Strings and member-operators — Dossy <dossy@...> 2002/07/23

On 2002.07.23, the Bare <grrr@wild.net> wrote:

[#45148] Re: Strings and member-operators — David Alan Black <dblack@...> 2002/07/23

Hi --

[#45173] Re: Strings and member-operators — Dossy <dossy@...> 2002/07/23

On 2002.07.23, David Alan Black <dblack@candle.superlink.net> wrote:

[#45175] Re: Strings and member-operators — David Alan Black <dblack@...> 2002/07/23

Hi --

[#45198] Re: Strings and member-operators — George Ogata <g_ogata@...> 2002/07/23

Hello,

[#45201] Re: Strings and member-operators — David Alan Black <dblack@...> 2002/07/23

Hi --

[#45206] Re: Strings and member-operators — Tom Sawyer <transami@...> 2002/07/23

let me get this straight? is the original question how to strip a string

[#45257] Re: GUI's and the Rouge, Part III (yes, finally) 1/2 — Benjamin Peterson <bjsp123@...>

>you have this super application you wrote --the

11 messages 2002/07/24

[#45269] Can I get data back from a fork? — Jim Freeze <jfreeze@...>

Hi:

15 messages 2002/07/24

[#45286] Re: GUI's and the Rouge, Part III (yes, finally) 1/2 — Benjamin Peterson <bjsp123@...>

>its really just SOC on aanother level.

10 messages 2002/07/24

[#45368] Re: [OT] Re: GUI's and the Rouge, Part III (yes, finally) 1/2 — Benjamin Peterson <bjsp123@...>

>The functionality of a spreadsheet had been around

39 messages 2002/07/25
[#45476] Re: curses dev kit, was Re: [OT] Re: GUI's and the Rouge — Thomas Dickey <dickey@...> 2002/07/26

clemens fischer <ino-waiting@gmx.net> wrote:

[#45480] Re: curses dev kit, was Re: [OT] Re: GUI's and the Rouge — Massimiliano Mirra <list@...> 2002/07/26

On Fri, Jul 26, 2002 at 07:51:25PM +0900, Thomas Dickey wrote:

[#45422] Singleton Classes & thread safety — David King Landrith <dave@...>

I'm a bit new to Ruby, so please excuse me if this is a simplistic=20

24 messages 2002/07/25
[#45425] Re: Singleton Classes & thread safety — Ned Konz <ned@...> 2002/07/25

On Thursday 25 July 2002 02:06 pm, David King Landrith wrote:

[#45427] Re: Singleton Classes & thread safety — David King Landrith <dave@...> 2002/07/25

On Thursday, July 25, 2002, at 05:26 PM, Ned Konz wrote:

[#45430] Re: Singleton Classes & thread safety — Ned Konz <ned@...> 2002/07/25

On Thursday 25 July 2002 02:44 pm, David King Landrith wrote:

[#45431] How do you think of... — Michael Campbell <michael_s_campbell@...> 2002/07/25

This is going to sound like an odd question, and there's no "right"

[#45429] Opinion on Ruby maturity, the missing things — "Paul E.C. Melis" <paul@...>

Hello all,

18 messages 2002/07/25
[#45440] Re: Opinion on Ruby maturity, the missing things — John Carter <john.carter@...> 2002/07/25

On Fri, 26 Jul 2002, Paul E.C. Melis wrote:

[#45465] Ruby-Talk Index — Tom Sawyer <transami@...>

here's a one nighter coding challange for some one feeling the need to

17 messages 2002/07/26
[#45466] Re: Ruby-Talk Index — matz@... (Yukihiro Matsumoto) 2002/07/26

Hi,

[#45467] Re: Ruby-Talk Index — Tom Sawyer <transami@...> 2002/07/26

On Thu, 2002-07-25 at 23:50, Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:

[#45621] Seattle.rb meeting tomorrow (7/30) — Pat Eyler <pate@...>

Just a quick reminder that we'll be meeting tomorrow night at 7:00 PM at

11 messages 2002/07/29

[#45644] FormatR 1.06 — Paul Rubel <rubel@...>

A new release of FormatR is out, 1.06. FormatR provides perl-like

37 messages 2002/07/30

[#45688] Ruby Language Q's — "Justin Johnson" <justinj@...>

76 messages 2002/07/30
[#45689] Re: Ruby Language Q's — Dave Thomas <Dave@...> 2002/07/30

"Justin Johnson" <justinj@mobiusent.com> writes:

[#45690] Re: Ruby Language Q's — ts <decoux@...> 2002/07/30

>>>>> "D" == Dave Thomas <Dave@PragmaticProgrammer.com> writes:

[#45723] Syntax proposal — Massimiliano Mirra <list@...>

I often write things like this:

12 messages 2002/07/30

[#45737] ActiveRubyScript and RubyAEOSA — Chris Gehlker <gehlker@...>

I just discovered ActiveRubyScript (sometimes written as two words) by

14 messages 2002/07/30
[#45742] Re: ActiveRubyScript and RubyAEOSA — "Hal E. Fulton" <hal9000@...> 2002/07/30

----- Original Message -----

[#45768] RE: A very basic tail -f implementation — "Berger, Daniel" <djberge@...>

> From: Paul Brannan [mailto:pbrannan@atdesk.com]

12 messages 2002/07/30

[#45799] Question about GetoptLong — Patrick Bennett <patrick.bennett@...>

I'm trying to recreate a Perl script in Ruby and have run into a problem.

22 messages 2002/07/31

[#45829] Unicode in Ruby now? — Tobias Peters <tpeters@...>

I've read the thread "Unicode in Ruby's Future?" [ruby-talk: 40016]. It

52 messages 2002/07/31
[#45840] Re: Unicode in Ruby now? — matz@... (Yukihiro Matsumoto) 2002/07/31

Hi,

[#45954] Re: Unicode in Ruby now? — Tobias Peters <tpeters@...> 2002/08/01

On Wed, 31 Jul 2002, Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:

[#45960] Re: Unicode in Ruby now? — Curt Sampson <cjs@...> 2002/08/01

On Thu, 1 Aug 2002, Tobias Peters wrote:

[#45969] Re: Unicode in Ruby now? — Alexander Bokovoy <a.bokovoy@...> 2002/08/01

On Thu, Aug 01, 2002 at 07:53:07PM +0900, Curt Sampson wrote:

[#45973] Re: Unicode in Ruby now? — Curt Sampson <cjs@...> 2002/08/01

On Thu, 1 Aug 2002, Alexander Bokovoy wrote:

[#45979] Re: Unicode in Ruby now? — Alexander Bokovoy <a.bokovoy@...> 2002/08/01

On Thu, Aug 01, 2002 at 09:55:48PM +0900, Curt Sampson wrote:

[#45982] Re: Unicode in Ruby now? — Curt Sampson <cjs@...> 2002/08/01

On Thu, 1 Aug 2002, Alexander Bokovoy wrote:

[#45993] Re: Unicode in Ruby now? — Alexander Bokovoy <a.bokovoy@...> 2002/08/01

On Thu, Aug 01, 2002 at 11:23:38PM +0900, Curt Sampson wrote:

[#46042] Re: Unicode in Ruby now? — Curt Sampson <cjs@...> 2002/08/02

On Fri, 2 Aug 2002, Alexander Bokovoy wrote:

[#46260] Re: Unicode in Ruby now? — Clifford Heath <cjh_nospam@...> 2002/08/04

Curt Sampson wrote:

[#46266] Re: Unicode in Ruby now? — Curt Sampson <cjs@...> 2002/08/05

On Mon, 5 Aug 2002, Clifford Heath wrote:

[#46281] Re: Unicode in Ruby now? — Clifford Heath <cjh_nospam@...> 2002/08/05

Curt Sampson wrote:

[#45922] Re: Unicode in Ruby now? — Clifford Heath <cjh_nospam@...> 2002/08/01

Matz,

[#45931] Re: Unicode in Ruby now? — Curt Sampson <cjs@...> 2002/08/01

On Thu, 1 Aug 2002, Clifford Heath wrote:

[#45859] matrix challange — Daniel Bretoi <lists@...>

15 messages 2002/07/31

[#45876] Emacs is dead, long live whatever comes after that as long as it is made with Ruby — Jani Alanko <jani.alanko@...>

Subject is not exactly right but I was too lazy to invent something that

13 messages 2002/07/31

Re: ActiveRubyScript and RubyAEOSA

From: Chris Gehlker <gehlker@...>
Date: 2002-07-30 21:31:06 UTC
List: ruby-talk #45772
On 7/30/02 10:59 AM, "Hal E. Fulton" <hal9000@hypermetrics.com> wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Chris Gehlker" <gehlker@fastq.com>
> To: "ruby-talk ML" <ruby-talk@ruby-lang.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2002 12:46 PM
> Subject: ActiveRubyScript and RubyAEOSA
> 
> 
>> I just discovered ActiveRubyScript (sometimes written as two words) by
>> following up on a  reference here. I haven't had a chance to play with it
>> yet but I'm installing a Windows emulator in the background so I can play
>> with it.
> 
> Isn't it actually called ActiveScriptRuby? I'm
> going from memory here...

ActiveScriptRuby is more common. I was just copying the translation from the
last page I googled up.

>> How important is it? How much is it like Ruby.
> 
> I'd say it *is* Ruby -- an embeddable version of the
> interpreter (embeddable in the sense of Windows Script
> Host, etc.). For example, using ASR, your Internet
> Explorer can run Ruby scripts just as (out of the box)
> it runs Javascript code.
> 
> Having said that it "is" Ruby, there may be differences
> I'm not aware of.
> 
> How important? Only if 1) you're using Windows and 2) you
> want to use an embedded Ruby interpreter. And then there
> might be other ways.
> 
>> It doesn't appear to be much like RubyAEOSA. Is this important?
> 
> I don't know about that. Can you elaborate?
> 

I was trying to get a sense of whether the community was happy with the way
that the Mac and Windows versions of Ruby as a 'scripting language' was
evolving separately. Personally I'm not because it seems to me that a
program that, for example, tells MS Word to grab some data from a named
range in Excel and insert it in a document should not have to know what OS
the apps are running on. But I don't want to speak too strongly about other
peoples projects.

>> I'm sort of a *nix newbie but thumbing through "Unix in a Nutshell" there
>> don't appear to be *any* 'scripting languages' in the Visual
>> Basic/JavaScript/AppleScript sense or for that matter any scriptable
>> applications.[1] I don't doubt that this is related to the linear nature
> of
>> many Unix apps that has been mentioned here before. But that raises the
>> question of will there ever be scriptable Unix apps, and if the answer is
>> yes, shouldn't there be a single Ruby syntax for addressing them.
> 
> Interesting viewpoint. Personally I would say that
> the Unix world *invented* the scriptable app and
> perhaps the concept of a scripting language (as
> opposed to the old job control languages). Flames
> to /dev/null, please. :)
> 
> But I think I see what you are saying. You want
> apps to expose an interface the way Windows apps
> expose a COM interface, or something, right? Or
> am I misunderstanding?

Exactly! I wasn't trying to start a flame war but 'scripting language' means
very different things in different contexts. I think of Ruby as a 'scripting
language' and Visual Basic for Applications as a 'macro' language. I think
of Excel as a 'scriptable app' and emacs as a 'programmable app'. I think
the distinction is clear enough to anyone who has used both. Languages like
Ruby and Perl are concerned more with data manipulation. The other group
strive to be more of a JCL. There competitors are bash, tcsh, etc more than
Ruby.

Having said that, the JavaScript folks were on to something. There is no
reason for the user to have to learn more than one syntax.

> Well, I have often wished for a COM equivalent in
> the Unix world. It would only be useful if there
> were one universal standard, I think. My knowledge
> of this particular area is limited, though, so I
> can't address it much.

The Mac OS X one is just XML. They have a DTD for an application to use to
describe the objects it knows about, the gettable instances, the
gettable/settable instances and the methods and their parameters and return
messages. The DTD associates more or less arbitrary 32 bit codes with all of
these human readable strings. It's up to the language implementer to parse
the XML and present the user with a human readable 'dictionary' and to turn
the dictionary words back into the codes. Alternatively, if you build the
language as a plug-in to ScriptEditor.app, you get the parsing and
translation 'for free'. The actual messaging infrastructure is just BSD IAC.

There are advantages to this approach. It's easy to understand, very easy
to localize, and it's not too hard to make tools that automate some of the
XML generation. It's portable to any OS that has some method of piping
messages between applications.

Of course it means the apps have to have an additional UI in addition to the
command line or GUI or whatever.

> But please, let's generate some discussion on this.
> 

What fuels my enthusiasm is seeing (non-Geek) graphic artists at my wife's
office doing useful work with AppleScript, the COBOL of scripting languages.

The language itself has some disfeatures but they find it easy to work with
because it presents an object hierarchy that's already familiar to them.
WorkBooks contain sheets contain ranges contain cells... They don't have to
create the objects, they already understand them from messing around with
spreadsheets. So if they get assigned to get some numbers from a corporate
database and manipulate them in Excel and present the results in a Word
document, they will do it by hand three of for times and then just script
the whole process.

Think about how much easier that would be with Ruby.
-- 
We are all born originals - why is it so many of us die copies? -Edward
Young, poet (1683-1765)

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