Comment Re:computers come with accessible languages (Score 1) 330
And these days, it isn't so necessary with the various bridges that exist between good scripting languages (Python and Ruby) and both Cocoa and OSA - namely, PyObjC, MacRuby, RubyOSA etc. - and plenty of command-line interfaces to various bits of the OS. Indeed, if you use an OSA bridge in Ruby, you have a much more powerful way AppleScript because you can combine code from the Ruby stdlib, Unix command line tools, abstracted C libraries (and inlined C) and the AppleScript interfaces. If you want to use a Java library, you wrap the OSA bridge stuff in a class and FFI out to it from JRuby. You get so much more, and you get to write it in a syntax that doesn't drive you completely batshit insane.
You also get a much better development experience: irb or ipython plus your favourite editor (vim, emacs, textmate etc.) beats the pants off the damn AppleScript script editor. Who in their right mind thought that not being able to save a file unless it compiled was a sensible idea? With irb, you can interactively examine your objects. Bash lines into the shell and see what happens. Much more useful than Script Editor which basically gives you an edit-compile-run cycle.
AppleScript is one of those things I wish Apple would replace. Now they are pursuing App Stores and iOS though, I don't hold out much hope that they'll deprecate AppleScript and encourage people to use Ruby instead. The idea that normal people are going to suddenly learn AppleScript because it has a "friendly" syntax is laughable.