Syntax

One of the side-effects of trying to learn how to use AppleScript is that I compile and run code I find on the internet just to see if it will compile, as is, and if it does, I can't resist clicking on the Run button just to see what happens, if anything. Yesterday, after I started reading this (long, but free .pdf) about AppleScript, I opened up the AppleScript Editor that's part of the operating system in order to see if the scripts the .pdf article provided actually worked on my machine. Most of them don't. The objects of the ready-made scripts are generalized, and I have to find the correct path on my specific machine for those scripts to compile and then Run.

This seems to be my stumbling block currently. There are scripts designed specifically to provide the names of these paths in the correct syntax. If I can get a grip on these types of scripts that provide me with the correct information that HAS to be syntactically correct to get the desired results from more complex scripts that actually perform a real-time service, then I might think this is gonna work out for me. I'm easy. I'll be happy if learning what the term "syntax" actually means.

I've tried to work a couple of programming tutorials before. Back when I was using a Windows box. I worked myself into a fervor about the possibility that i could download the stuff I needed to learn PERL. I couldn't figure out how to call up and connect the compiler to the tutorial in order to practice. Learning AppleScript won't have that sort of problem because it's a system-based doodad that's all set up and ready to rock and roll. I worked the entry chapter of a commercial tutorial designed by Apple. They offered the first chapter as a come-on to get people to pay for the rest of the online book. The top retail price is only $44. I'm not trying to get outta paying their asking price. It's reasonable. I just wanna make sure I'm pumped enough about learning it to spring for the whole fee.

It may be a trick specifically designed to delude liberal arts majors into thinking they could actually learn a language that uses numbers and other weird symbols as it's mainstay, but I debugged and solved what turned out to be two simple errors that at first I couldn't get to compile because of syntactical errors, and then when the script I used from the tutorial finally compiled, it still wouldn't do anything when I clicked on the Run button. This is usually all it would take for me to give up and say... well, you know... and go back to playing Hearts and Sudoku.

Amazingly, I persevered. I finally messed around enough that I actually got both scripts to Compile and Run. Granted, these were the examples in the first chapter of the book. Even I could see they were fairly easy to resolve, but the fact that I hung in there and overcome my developing apathy was/is encouraging.

I think I have to live by myself because nobody can bear to see themselves in me through the inevitable projection process that can't not happen. I let a lotta events happen that many people profess to stop from happening simply because I am is curious. Curiosity is part of the original package that came with the pearl. So is volition or will power. But, the most intriguing topic I'm presently attempting to definitively grok is that part of the original package that came with the pearl is memory. Curiosity, volition, and... memory.

I keep visualizing pea pods or folding leather purses as containers. More recently, however, I see this "pouch", this container, as an aura that seems external, but is merely the event horizon of what's possible by attrition when me-me-cry is the whole of the creative force, and thus no more than a second-hand Rose who can't be-co-me with what it makes itself into through imitation.

I sort of think that I want to learn some sort of programming language because of the strict syntax. I know. I KNOW.. that's just crazy talk. I've been a math phobe all my life, and suddenly I'm reaching for logic as a goto device? There's something more to this than what is readily apparent to a casual observer.

The Wilhelm/Baynes translation of the Emperor's Yellow Book played a big role in how I came to see the world in my latter days. I studied and used it almost daily for over thirty years. One morning I woke up from dreaming early and heard a voice telling me in no uncertain, but pleasant terms, "Stop using the I Ching." Less and less do I rue that day.