[Pythonmac-SIG] Python/appscript ready for primetime?

[Karsten Wolf]

Hi,


Am 04.09.2007 um 20:29 schrieb Karl Sweitzer:

> Is Python's appscript suitable and sufficiently mature for deployment
> in a commercial application?

You'll have to find out about the commercial part yourself, but...

I started Python (with appscript, py2app, pyobjc (which you'll all  
need if want to go commercial)) about 5 month ago and it's simply the  
best tool I have.

It takes a while (like any new language you learn) and AppleEvent  
Object hierarchies take their own time until they do what you want...  
plus you not only learn a new language but also some new FrameWorks.


> With the demise of VBA in Microsoft Office, we are faced with
> transitioning scripts that manipulate equations in Office and manage
> the interoperation of our application with Office. AppleScript is an
> obvious candidate, but coyote ugly in the eyes of many developers,
> including us. We are looking for viable alternatives.

I havent looked at recent Office versions but the older ones were  
(IIRC Word 8 or 9) had an impressive AppleEvent dictionary.


> Python, augmented by appscript to access the Word Object Model, is
> the best candidate we've identified thus far. However, we have
> negligible experience with Python and zero experience with appscript.



> Further, we note that appscript has not reached version 1.0.

Most open source projects don't have a marketing department that  
pushes version numbers unnecessary. They tick by a different clock...  
and are usable at v0.1 ;-)

appscript is very mature.

> Has anybody out there used Python and appscript for a commercial
> product?

Not me.

> Does it deserve active consideration?

Yes!

> Are there other
> candidates we should be considering?

The only candidates I would consider also use appscript (rb-appscript  
& objc-appscript; together with py-appscript in the sourceforge  
repository).

If you're into Lisp: there seems to be some decent AppleEvent support  
in one of the commercial Lisps. I haven't used it and am not sure  
which one it was (MCL or LispWorks).

If you find another one, please let me know. I switched over from  
Frontier and have nearly identical opinions about AppleScript...


> If you have an opinion--or better yet, experience in this area--we'd
> like to hear from you.

<opinion>
The ability to develop in an interactive environment (have a look at  
your objects at the command line) together with very rich libraries  
and frameworks and the ability to tap into the world of cocoa make py- 
appscript the __only__ candidate I would consider for your needs
</opinion>


Take a look at the appscript, pyobjc and py2app examples.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/pyobjc/

http://undefined.org/python/py2app.html



-karsten