[Pythonmac-SIG] appscript terminology caching

[Bob Ippolito]

On Oct 15, 2004, at 5:33 PM, Paul Berkowitz wrote:

> On 10/15/04 1:56 PM, "Bob Ippolito" <bob at redivi.com> wrote:
>
>> I'm not sure I agree with this.  I'm pretty sure that compiled
>> applescripts do not depend on the terminology of the applications they
>> talk to, and I would imagine that the vast majority of applications
>> written in compiled languages that use AppleScript to talk to one
>> another do not parse terminologies before they start talking.
>
> Absolutely they do. It's not something you "agree to" or not. It's a 
> fact.
> Compiled applescripts DO depend on the terminology of the applications 
> they
> talk to.
>
> Behind every keyword in AppleScript lies a hidden "raw code" which is 
> the
> real command. class or property. It appears in its own right as
> «guillemets», like that. They are always «class xxxx» - 4 characters, 
> or
> «event xxxxxxxx».- 8 characters. There are all sorts of rules about 
> them,
> such as that only Apple can use all lower-case. There are some English
> keywords belonging to the AppleScript language itself. which will 
> always
> compile and decompile. But keywords belonging to an application will 
> only
> compile and decompile within a "tell application" block, and where the
> application has to be present on the machine. If a script has been 
> properly
> compiled, it will not decompile or run on another machine if it can't 
> find
> an application of the correct name. What you seen then, if you open it 
> in a
> script editor, are the raw codes. And the script will not run. It asks 
> the
> user where the application in question is, and if the user cannot find 
> it
> correctly (it may be under another name), it fails.  As has mentioned,
> there's a clever 'using terms from' block you can use when you compile 
> a
> script that lets you direct a tell block to an application by 
> variable. That
> allows the script to compile (with raw codes) on another machine, and 
> if the
> script is designed to allow the Finder to find the application, under
> whatever name, by its creator code or CFBundleIdentifier in a plist, 
> it will
> run.
>
> I'm startled that someone of your acuity in your own area, Python, 
> would
> imagine that has doesn't know what he's talking about in AppleScript. 
> He's
> an expert, one of the very, very few who knows its inner workings. 
> Unless
> you somehow know better for certain, I think that a good working policy
> would be to take has's word for everything to do with how AppleScript 
> works.

You misinterpreted what I had said.  I'll restate it in a more precise 
manner:

I'm pretty sure that compiled applescripts do not depend on acquiring 
and parsing an aete from the target application(s) at runtime, and I'm 
even more sure that most applications that use apple events for IAC do 
not acquire and parse an aete at runtime from their target 
application(s).

-bob