Paul Berkowitz wrote:
If appscript is meant to replace the vagaries of AppleScript with the sanity of Python, there's no getting around the fact that its whole raison d'être - healthy application scripting - can founder on poorly implemented application AppleEvent syntax, with no one around to explain it, let alone fix it.
The 'syntax problem' I mention is common to both AppleScript and appscript and has _nothing_ to do with individual applications' Apple event support.
The problem is that both wrap Apple events in a very OO-like syntax which is easy to use and perfectly sound in itself, but tends to mislead unwary users who assume that because it looks like OO it *is* OO. Which it's not: it's an RPC interface plus simple relational query builder. While I could change appscript's syntax to make it look less OO-like, it would also make it less easy to use. The solution is better education (starting with better documentation, obviously) so that appscript users aren't labouring under any false assumptions when they start to use it.
BTW, the last place to learn this stuff is from AppleScript, which plays even more syntactic and semantic tricks and is even worse about informing its users of this. It's something we Python folks will have to provide for ourselves, and I'm sure we will.
All of which is a completely separate issue to learning how to effectively script individual applications, which is the problem the OP's having. That has nothing to do with the language/bridge used, and everything to do with learning how an application's Apple Event Object Model works, what it can and can't do, where all the quirks and bugs lie, etc. Information that should be supplied by application developers, of course, but they often don't so users often have to rely on experimentation and shared knowledge to fill in the blanks.
Personally I don't think the language difference should be too much of an issue when asking application-related questions, though we'll only find out for sure when appscripters start asking these questions on traditionally AppleScript-oriented lists such as MacScrpt. (As opposed to Python/appscript-related questions, which are still best asked here.)
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