AppleScript: The Definitive Guide: Scripting and Automating Your Mac (Definitive Guides)
£16.73
Spaghetti - Programmers refer to spaghetti code, this book is spaghetti writing.It is practically useless for learning Applescript (even for a programmer like me) and the author wastes far too much time on pointless topics such as trying to impress the reader by showing why AppleScript is like LISP.It’s the worst computer book I have ever read and I don’t recommend it as a first book on Applescript for anyone.
Exhaustive and Serious Warts and All Reference. - One thing is very clear: Matt Neuberg has really fathomed the depths of Apple s unique little scripting language in a more or less successful attempt to document all the quirks, gotchas and roadblocks that plague the average scripter. I would question how useful this would be for a beginner, but it is a superb reference, going into exhaustive detail on every level of the language and its use. In fact, this book should have been called AppleScript Annoyances , because it really tackles the things which are likely to have you pulling your hair out, instead of pretending it is just going to be plain sailing.The book opens with one of the most interesting chapters, showing the thought process that Matt goes through in writing a script to perform some tedious authoring task for the book itself (hooking up illustrations in framemaker). He goes out of his way to describe things that are skimmed over in most other books, without dumbing down: Just because AppleScript is a scripting language from Apple, doesn t mean that it is designed for idiots who can t work out how to use a two button mouse. Matt clearly has a healthy disrespect for the whole thing, which I find refreshing.If you aren t put off by someone telling you how it really is (and it gets ugly sometimes: that chapter on scope... brrrr) then this book has all the answers. If you d rather maintain the fantasy that everything in AppleScript makes perfect, intuitive sense, then this book will shake up your paradigms, but maybe make your life easier in the process.
Useful information presented in an unfocussed format. - Unfortunately, this title doesn t live up to the standards typical of O Reilly publications. The actual information content is good: the author definitely knows his stuff. But being a technical wizard doesn t impart the ability to write well. And it shows.It takes until chapter 5 before the actual basic syntax of the language is discussed, Chapters 1-4 are busy talking about how flexible AppleScript is (very), how to think when tackling a problem (pretty much the same way as with any other language, thanks), and presenting customised solutions to problems that the author has experienced but that everyone else will view as utterly irrelevent. In addition to this, the author has trouble keeping his eltitist ego under control, with examples of calling scripts from Ruby, Python, Perl and Objective-C: in each case, essentially nothing more than shelling out to osascript . His deliberations on broken parts of AppleScript are pompous, as is his comparison of just about every feature to another language in his repertoire at every opportunity. In this book on Apple s scripting language, he appears keen to remind us mere mortals how many real languages he knows.The treatment of the AppleScript language and its quirks is thorough despite these criticisms, although the examples given are far from clear and the topics lack structure.In summary, there s information in this book that you ll have a hard time finding anywhere else, but you ll have to work to extract it and, if you re anything like me, won t enjoy the process.