Novel Thoughts on Scripting and Languages

[James Huang]

Mike Meyer <mwm at mired.org> wrote in message news:<x765szwop4.fsf at guru.mired.org>...
> judoscript at hotmail.com (James Huang) writes:
> 
> > Mike Meyer <mwm at mired.org> wrote in message news:<x7wulgwa1g.fsf at guru.mired.org>...
> > > judoscript at hotmail.com (James Huang) writes:
> > > 
> > > > > > Have you ever thought about scripting more areas, such
> > > > > > as SQL, XML, EJB, SGML, HTTP, E-mail and GUI, the way you
> > > > > > script OS commands, all at once? Think about it!
> > > > > I have. I've written in it. It's called Rexx. Where JudoScript is as
> > > > > much a multi-target scripting langauge as this article is novel, Rexx
> > > > > is the real McCoy.
> > > > Admittedly I'm no Rexx person.
> > > In that case, you've missed the first true multitarget scripting
> > > language, and it's only been around for 20 years now. I'd say you
> > > failed to check on prior work properly.
> > You've mentioned multi-"target" twice now, and I need to do some
> > research on that. JudoScript is a tool for Java, so I checked Java
> > scripting languages and felt comfortable.
> 
> That's obviously pretty short-sighted. Basically, Rexx lets you talk
> to any Rexx-enabled application the same way most Unix scripting
> languages talk to the shell. The result is very powerful - once you
> get enough applications Rexx-enabled.

Being a Java-based scripting language, it is reasonable to check out
Java scripting languages. You can certainly Java-enable an application
(via JNI, for instance, or CORBA, or ActiveX, ...) and have it
accessible from Java or its scripting languages. -- I don't see why
Rexx is particularly more powerful -- but I know little about Rexx so
may missed a lot.

> 
> > > As others have mentioned, you can do this kind of thing with VBA. On
> > > Unix, you can do it with CORBA. The real measure of the power of this
> > > approach is how many applications will support what you're doing.
> > Actually it is not VBA or CORBA, it is object model.
> 
> CORBA provides you with an object model. When scripting a
> CORBA-enabled application, you manipulate objects in the
> application. And you can do it from any language that has CORBA
> support, which is most of the ones I'm familiar with - including Java.
> 
> > In Java, each object is a (mini) application. Any application is a
> > collection of objects. We don't even need a command-line interface for
> > that matter to use the magic of Rexx, do we? That's why Java is a
> > dream platform not only for scripting, but also programming as well!
> 
> Jave doesn't do multiple inheritance, which makes it far from a "dream
> platform" for programming as far as I'm concerned. I'd recommend you
> check out Bertrand Meyer's "Object Oriented Software Construction" for
> the reasons why not doing MI is a bad thing. Actually, I recommend
> that book to anyone who does or wants to do OO programming.
> 

There are prenty of discussions about Java, ... seems people are
pragmatic enough to accept Java without multi-inheritance.

> > > How hard is it to add judoscript support to a random application, and
> > > how much overhead does it add? Do I have to embed a java vm in the
> > > thing to use it? What advantage does it give me over doing a CORBA
> > > interface - see <URL: http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/scripting/ > for a
> > > bit on that - to make up for the loss of the ability to write scripts
> > > in any language with CORBA support? On Windows, you get to do the same
> > > comparison with ActiveX or whatever MS is calling their distributed
> > > object technology this month.
> > I sensed you are not quite into Java, but unfortunately I am all Java
> > now. I thought IBM is pretty big on Java, perhaps it's just because
> > IBM is big that makes IBM-Java look big?
> 
> You failed to answer the questions, and these as well:
> 
> > > Unix, you can do it with CORBA. The real measure of the power of this
> > > approach is how many applications will support what you're doing.
>  
> > > For instance, you talk about scripting in SQL. How many databases does
> > > it work with, and which ones?
> 
> So I get the impression that Judoscript is only about scripting Java
> objects, and not about scripting applications. That means it's limited
> to applications written in Java, which is pretty pittiful. That also

Yes, it's all about Java. In terms of non-Java applications, some of
them can (like though ActiveX scripting or CORBA-Java), or as
mentioned earlier, somehow Java-enabled.

> means that JudoScript differs from Jython and similar Java tools only
> in syntax.

I'd say JudoScript as a language provides more than any other pure
programming languages, (practically they all are.) -- Please see my
definition of "scripting" and "scripting languages" in my response to
Dave Brueck (in Google Groups, it is thread #29).

> 
> Personally, I'd rather *not* learn another language just to script my

Of course, of course.

> objects. What little Java programming I've done I used Jython for
> scripting because I already knew Python. If I were going to get
> serious about Java, I'd look for a Java scripting tool that let me use
> Java syntax for everything.

You are not alone, there are more than one such project to interpret
Java as a scripting language, let alone BeanShell and now JavaScript
are very close to Java. (For the most part, so is JudoScript.) Jython
is not, and this is interesting to hear from a Python programmer.

But, when you do, hopefully you will think twice. Scripting is much
more than saving a compile.

> 
>         <mike

Thanks,
-James