[Sussex] AppleScript and Red Hat 8.0

[Tony Dart]

Evening all - anyone alive?

Geoff wrote:
> Hmmm.  An EventQueue is an exposed aspect of the system's message queues
> providing application "event" feedback - effectively a callback from the
> application in question.  The "Event" concept being a lot of simplified
GUI
> development systems (like VB *yuk*) trivialise the concept of interprocess
> communication (IPC) so that state changes in contained objects can be
acted
> upon externally and you don't have to worry that keyboard and mouse
> interaction are running in a completely different process to you
> application.   Exposing the applications "Events" through the Carbon or
> Cocoa API's that the applicaions will be written on top of is all very
well
> and good and, yes, it could certainly reduce the need for an API for each
> application, but once again we're left with three options, either:
>
> a) every application "Event" is exposed ;
> b) only Carbon / Cocoa "Events" are exposed;
> or c) some program specific subset of "Events" are exposed.
>

Geoff, I don't think we are talking about the same thing here at all. The
EventQueue on the Mac is fundamental to the system, not an OOP technology.
When a key is pressed an event is posted to the queue, when the mouse is
moved it's new position is posted and in due course processed. Apps either
post directly or via system calls such as opening a new window. The
EventQueue is a channel for communicating with the system rather than IPC
per se - on the PC you would use hardware interrupts, here it is done by
software.

AppleScript does use a mechanism of API exposure to the apps - dictionaries
of methods which are also called events.

Right, only one real point of disagreement still ;-)


> The reality of all of this is as follows:
>
> We're getting there!
>
Nope. At least 20 years behind. Contrast Linux with an advanced GUI system
of 20 years ago and there is no comparison - Linux is far less easy to setup
and use. The system I am thinking of is the Lisa, forerunner to the Mac, amd
was actually a Unix based system (until the first Mac was released and they
ported the singleuser Mac OS to the Lisa before killing it off).

But you are right in saying that it is fast developing - another couple of
major system releases and it may actually work straight out of the box. Once
Linux is fit for the workplace I am sure that it will replace Windows for
many users.

> Good talking to you..
And complete agreemenr here - thanx for your views

Tony