Philip Aker wrote:

> >> At 10:54 PM +0100 4/21/05, has wrote:
> >>> AppleScript's unicode support is buggy.
> >>>     [respectfully snipped]
> >>> Consider using something like Perl or Python when working with
> >>> unicode text
>
> >> Yet this does not make a reason to advise using something else.
>
> Just remember that Hamish got married to Python a few years ago and
> won't be called to testify against his spouse ;-)

Funny man. Y'know, ain't wise to be casting stones like that, Mr I- 
use-the-AmigaOS-of-Programming-Languages... ;p

Anyways, I moved from AppleScript to Python because it has the best  
ease-of-use, community and library support, and featureset of the  
mainstream scripting languages. It's not the greatest language in the  
world (I can think of several I'd happily bail for if they had the  
same levels of community and library support), but it's still miles  
ahead of AppleScript in almost every way that matters [1]. Also,  
AppleScript just massively pissed me off one too many times. Other  
languages may occasionally annoy a bit, but at least they don't  
induce full-blown psychotic breaks. :p


Emmanuel wrote:

> >FBA's are better than Scripting Additions since they do not cause
> >name conflicts etc..
>
> Thanks for the tip, however would you accept to elaborate about what
> "etc" stands for here?

Off the top of my head: no global namespace conflicts, able to  
support an Apple Event Object Model, don't have to be universal  
binaries to be used by both PPC and x86 applications. On the  
downside, the messaging overheads for an FBA are a bit higher than  
for an osax loaded in the current application's context, but if  
performance is that much of an issue then AppleScript is a poor  
choice of language anyhow. Both are inferior to extending the  
language via a native C API - something most other languages provide  
- but that's just something you have to live with.


John Delacour wrote:

> >AppleScript's unicode support is buggy
>
> Is it?  Was it?  How?

The original thread covered some of the problems. The most serious  
bug I can remember is that list-to-Unicode-text coercions return  
truncated results if the original text contains certain non-ASCII  
characters (most of them, I think). You can avoid that by using  
(e.g.) TextCommands' join command instead.

Come to think of it, I reckon that thread was one of the things that  
spurred me to write TC in the first place. Must've been in a public- 
service mood at the time. :)


has

[1] Python's OSA component support is still weak compared to AS's,  
but that only affects attachability (Folder Actions, Mail rules,  
extending Smile, etc.) so isn't a huge deal.
-- 
"Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time!"