Practical advice

[John R. <jh...@ma...>]

Gary,

Should the AppleMod/Loader structures be used to retain ALL reusable  
code, or just what I plan to publish to AppleMod and/or download? It  
seemed to me that in order to use them for my private library  
purposes, I needed to understand the structures well enough to  
publish. Hence the sample code I sent.  However, I anticipate  
problems with massive clutter in the ASLibraries folder, assuming I  
segment scattered routines into neat library files. Another  
organization approach might be a single library for my large private  
collection. Any practical advice?

I am transitioning from the most simple, and most stupid, approach to  
lIbraries: Script Editor and copy/paste reused code as text to every  
new, self-contained text file. Wonderfully easy. No naming of  
external scripts. No old stuff breaks until I decide to touch it again!

I looked at Script Debugger and Smile and XCode/Applescript Studio. I  
decided I did not like the price (in one case) or the need to learn /  
buy-into someone else's framework.

AppleMod/Loader seemed attractive because it's free and developed /  
maintained by people whose abilities I respect. And there is no  
mysterious framework, etc. However, it did spook me to discover,  
after sending that sample, just how few modev submissions there were!  
Has the smart money moved on the next big thing? Should I follow your  
friend has to Python? It fits my own profile to discover something  
truly great, long after it becomes passe!

Anyway, a few comments:

First, the header incantations don't actually bother me as a  
newcomer. They are very consistent, and the mechanism is fully  
exposed. It was a good learning experience tracing them enough so  
that I trust them and ignore them. I have already started to modify  
your LoadWizard script, and I imagine that will grow into something  
personally (or publicly) very useful.

One real problem is that every source file has the same name:  
library.scpt. I can't tell them apart in  Script Editor, and recent  
history is useless now.

Another silly thing (that has actually delayed my library transition  
for years) is the need for adding another name to every call in my  
legacy code: DoThisNow() must change to John's DoThisNow(). This is  
why I never even bothered with AS's save script / load script  
libraries...

Which is to say that I have no complaints, because I don't see any  
solution other than my adapting...

thanks,

- John