Python/appscript ready for primetime?

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

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.

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.

Has anybody out there used Python and appscript for a
commercial  
product? Does it deserve active consideration? Are there
other  
candidates we should be considering?

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

Thanks.
-- 
Karl Sweitzer
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Karl Sweitzer wrote:
> Is Python's appscript suitable and sufficiently mature
for deployment  
> in a commercial application?
> 
> 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.
> 
> 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.

It has been around for quite some time, however.

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

The Mac version of Goombah (www.goombah.com) uses it.

> Does it deserve active consideration? 

Yes, you should consider it, although only you can determine
if it will 
ultimately work for you. The greatest difficulty we had is
that, at 
times translating AppleScript commands to appscript commands
is tricky 
and there are not a lot of examples available, but we always
got it 
working in the end.

> Are there other  
> candidates we should be considering?

Not in Python, that I'm aware of. I believe there are
somewhat similar 
libraries for Ruby and Perl, though I have no experience
with either.

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

You're welcome.

Mike

_______________________________________________
Pythonmac-SIG maillist  -  Pythonmac-SIGpython.org
http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/pythonmac-sig

Karl Sweitzer wrote:
> Is Python's appscript suitable and sufficiently mature
for deployment  
> in a commercial application?
> 
> 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.
> 
> 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.

It has been around for quite some time, however.

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

The Mac version of Goombah (www.goombah.com) uses it.

> Does it deserve active consideration? 

Yes, you should consider it, although only you can determine
if it will 
ultimately work for you. The greatest difficulty we had is
that, at 
times translating AppleScript commands to appscript commands
is tricky 
and there are not a lot of examples available, but we always
got it 
working in the end.

> Are there other  
> candidates we should be considering?

Not in Python, that I'm aware of. I believe there are
somewhat similar 
libraries for Ruby and Perl, though I have no experience
with either.

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

You're welcome.

Mike
_______________________________________________
Pythonmac-SIG maillist  -  Pythonmac-SIGpython.org
http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/pythonmac-sig

Karl,




Karl Sweitzer wrote:

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

I've used appscript for simple tasks (e.g. attaching a PDF
to an  
email) in an in-house application where I work. It works
great for  
what I need to do. My only complaint is that the AppleScript
API's  
are not always documented very well--I'm not sure how Word's
 
AppleScript is documented. That and AppleScript has the
strangest  
grammar I have ever encountered in a programming language.

> 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.

Depending on what you are doing, it may work out well for
you to  
write a wrapper (implemented in Python and appscript) around
the  
parts of the Word Object Model that you will be using. This
would  
provide you with a nicer-to-use API than what appscript will
give  
you, and then appscript becomes an implementation detail. Of
course  
this may not be an option if you are using too much of the
Word  
Object Model.

> 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.

I think you will find Python to be a very nice alternative
to VB.  
Make sure you really dig into learning Python. Compared to
VB you'll  
find it much simpler to implement many things. But as the
saying goes  
"you can write Fortran in any language". Be sure
to learn the Python  
conventions and not just translate your VB conventions
directly to  
Python.

> Has anybody out there used Python and appscript for a
commercial
> product? Does it deserve active consideration? Are
there other
> candidates we should be considering?

I would say it definitely deserves some consideration, and I
 
personally don't know of any other candidates.

~ Daniel


_______________________________________________
Pythonmac-SIG maillist  -  Pythonmac-SIGpython.org
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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://source
forge.net/projects/pyobjc/

http://undefi
ned.org/python/py2app.html



-karsten


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