macOS Is there a more active AppleScript forum site?

[moonman239]

Sometimes my AppleScript questions on this forum go unanswered. Is there a more active, AppleScript-oriented forum site that I can use?

 

[Red Menace]

Just the usuals, such as MacScripter or the Apple support discussions.

Not necessarily referring to you specifically, but these days I'm seeing a lot more topics that are too specific (e.g. use resources that may not be available, such as a particular database or expensive application), include way too much code, or just contain no useful information (or no information at all). Constantly having to fight to get information about what someone is talking about has a tendency to burn people out, so the pool of contributors winds up drying out - not that it was particularly large to begin with (more like a puddle).

Usually you will have better luck by narrowing your query to just the issue at hand, including a complete (small) example that demonstrates the problem - topics that look like they will become a time sink tend to be avoided. Of course, it could just be that nobody knows...

 

[moonman239]

Just the usuals, such as MacScripter or the Apple support discussions.

Not necessarily referring to you specifically, but these days I'm seeing a lot more topics that are too specific (e.g. use resources that may not be available, such as a particular database or expensive application), include way too much code, or just contain no useful information (or no information at all). Constantly having to fight to get information about what someone is talking about has a tendency to burn people out, so the pool of contributors winds up drying out - not that it was particularly large to begin with (more like a puddle).

Usually you will have better luck by narrowing your query to just the issue at hand, including a complete (small) example that demonstrates the problem - topics that look like they will become a time sink tend to be avoided. Of course, it could just be that nobody knows...

Hm. Well, I try to be as specific as I can in my post and the title, and I tell the helpers what I think they need to know. There was one time when I didn't give a guy/girl what he or she wanted, telling him or her that I thought he could very well have created an example file to see what I'm seeing. I don't remember ever giving him or her that file he or she asked for, but that's in the past now.

Anyways, I've decided to create a forum on Google.com. It's called "AppleScript Developers". Currently, only those who have a Google Account can join, but I may open it up to everyone if I don't have enough people in the group.

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Here's the link to the group:

https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/applescript-developers

I should mention that I give credit to those who provide a helpful, timely answer.

 

[Red Menace]

Sites that have a dedicated AppleScript forum (e.g. MacScripter or MacOSXHints), tend to get more views (not necessarily more replies), while those that are of a more serious nature (e.g. StackOverflow or the Apple Mailing List), usually have lower views but higher quality responses, so it depends on what you are looking for. I keep track of a few forums, but target any questions to the one that has what I think are the people that can answer it (you can tell who the regulars are and their skill levels by watching for a while).

 

[moonman239]

Sites that have a dedicated AppleScript forum (e.g. MacScripter or MacOSXHints), tend to get more views (not necessarily more replies), while those that are of a more serious nature (e.g. StackOverflow or the Apple Mailing List), usually have lower views but higher quality responses, so it depends on what you are looking for. I keep track of a few forums, but target any questions to the one that has what I think are the people that can answer it (you can tell who the regulars are and their skill levels by watching for a while).

Your first sentence doesn't make much sense to me. I don't see how either forum can be more or less serious than another related forum. Also, Stack Overflow and the Apple Mailing list cover a wider variety of subjects than just AppleScript, so of course they're more active. People on either site, however, may not be able to get a great response in a timely fashion to an AppleScript question.

I wanted a forum where people get an answer as soon as possible, so I created a forum of my own. In my forum, I will reward my most active and helpful people. I'm hoping that by doing so, I will encourage people to be more active in the community. This reward would be a huge payoff for developers who want to attract customers.

 

[Red Menace]

Your first sentence doesn't make much sense to me. I don't see how either forum can be more or less serious than another related forum.

What I meant by "more serious" is that the Apple Mailing Lists have a few different lists for AppleScript and tends to have more developers on it, and StackOverflow is somewhat intolerant of the casual noob (i.e. non-developer type) who may not know how to ask questions in the proper way there.

I don't think you are always going to get an immediate response from any forum (due to its nature) - it pretty much depends on whoever (and however many) happen to be looking at it at the time.

 

[ytk]

Part of the reason that you're having trouble finding great support for AppleScript is that there are simply not very many people with advanced-level proficiency with AppleScript anymore. The plain truth is that there's no good reason to use straight AppleScript for anything other than the most trivial purposes. It's notoriously difficult to program in, being riddled with all sorts of gotchas and pitfalls, and lacking functionality in many areas.

Most serious developers have moved on to one of the (really quite good) scripting bridges that let you easily integrate AppleScript commands into your language of choice—generally, Ruby, Python, or Objective-C. In my experience, Ruby with rb-appscript makes for a much better AppleScript than AppleScript. The number of AppleScript programmers with the experience level required to provide guidance on more complicated issues can probably be counted on one hand.

 

[Red Menace]

AppleScriptObjC lets me play with Cocoa and prototype interfaces fairly quickly, automates other applications the same as it ever did, and works well enough for what I need at the moment. I wouldn't mind a decent high-level language that is integrated with Xcode though, but I haven't really found anything yet that didn't require a lot more hacking than I prefer.

edit: MacRuby doesn't look too bad though...