With a mighty <19970417.7DC0A38.8702@contessa.phone.net>,
bouncenews@contessa.phone.net uttered these wise words...
> Most programming languages (including
> ports from Unix) include facilities to talk to these applications.
So what are people arguing over? The choice of scripting language is
irrelevant, if the app doesn't dictate any specific language.
> Windows isn't forever. Probably not even for the rest of my life. And
> there'll always be a niche market of people for whom the "good enough"
> sold by MS isn't.
So this isn' a problem? It sounds a lot like you're just sticking your
head in the sand, and ignoring the problem. I'm not suggesting that
Windows is "right", or even that it'll last forever. (See the
Millenium page on the MSR website. It might be their next OS.)
What I'm saying is that focusing on the _language_ is missing the
point. Let everyone choose the scripting language they prefer, and the
language choice becomes a non-issue. That's what MS have done. Now,
they may suck farts from dead cats, but IMHO this is the right way to
do it. You seem to agree with me about that, so please let's not let
mere OS politics get in the way. I'm no fan of ActiveX, but the one
thing that I can truely appreciate about it is the approach to
scripting, as it throws away the language politics!
I don't see why MS and Windows developers - and users - should be the
only people to benefit from this fine idea. This is why I welcome non-
Windows scripting systems, like Guile. However, if anyone objects to
using Scheme as a core scripting language, then the Guile people will
have failed to remove the language issue completely, as MS have done.
I hope that nobody will have any reason to object, but experience
tells me that some people will. I just hope that I'm wrong.
What I'm most certainly _not_ suggesting is that everyone should use
Windows, or anything else sold by MS. I'm not even suggesting that
ActiveX itself is a good thing. I just wonder how much easier it might
be to extend an app if it were possible to use familiar scripting
language, instead of the one that the author of an app arbitrarily
decided would be "best". I used the word "arbitrarily", as there seems
to be no consensus on the issue of lanaguage choice, nor does it look
like there'll be one in the forseeable future. Such choices are
currently influenced by what I'd call language politics, as there's no
real consensus over the _technical_ pros and cons, never mind anything
of a more subjective nature!
This is why I say that ActiveX Scripting is a good thing. Perhaps it's
unfortunate that it comes from MS, and not Sun or Apple. Well, that's
OS politics, an which is possibly even _more_ "arbitrary" choice,
depending on your view of things. If it's determined by where you work
or were first exposed to computers, then I'd call it "arbitrary".
I try to be pragmatic. ;) A pragmatic approach might be to not bother
trying to convert people who do _not_ want to be converted, but to
instead accept that they'll make "arbitrary" choices, and to support
them. The fact that MS have done this should be irrelevant. I'm using
it as an example to make a point, which is that this helps everyone,
while the endless bickering about which language is "best" does _not_.
--
<URL:http://www.wildcard.demon.co.uk/> You can never browse enough
Martin Rodgers | Programmer and Information Broker | London, UK
Please note: my email address is gubbish.
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