[chipotle_coyote]

TextMate never had AppleScript integration, AFAIK.

Also, I'm not convinced we should ignore those "archaic" technologies, at least in the abstract. Applications can provide "dictionaries" of commands that, when implemented well, provide GUI applications with the kind of "snap together for amazing effect" you get with shell scripts and a host of well-written CLI tools. You arguably can't script the AppleScript-intensive BBEdit to the same level that you could, say, Emacs or Vim, but imagine the possibilities of a suite of apps from different makers that all had complete scripting dictionaries that could all be woven together with a deep system-wide scripting language.

I actually think it's a shame that AppleScript has been kicked to the curb. I don't think we have a "modern" replacement yet -- certainly not in the Apple ecosystem, and I'm not sure anywhere else. (Shortcuts on iOS is trying, but it's not on the Mac yet, and it gets pretty clunky if you start doing overly complicated automation bits with it.)

[shp0ngle]

AppleScript is a great idea in how everything is scriptable.

Unfortunately, the language itself is a horrible abomination from the wild 1990s days of Mac OS... sorry, now macOS... and writing absolutely anything in it is painful.

I feel like Apple introduced Automator to overcome the pain of AppleScript, but it never really caught on (I don't even know if Automator is still on macOS.... yep it is, still with the cute Aquaesque icon)

Nowadays everything is Electron anyway and those are not that well AppleScript-able, but what to do, that's life

[Gaelan]

"AppleScript" can do JS now, but it's so clunky and badly documented that it's barely worth it.

[hhas01]

JXA, like Scripting Bridge before it, was shipped crippled and buggy and abandoned once it was out the door. Apple finally disbanded the Mac Automation team and fired the PM responsible a couple years ago.

In fact, there are several production-tested Apple event bridges that totally wipe the floor with Apple’s failed attempts, but caveat emptor as I don’t do support:

http://appscript.sourceforge.net https://www.npmjs.com/package/nodeautomation https://hhas.bitbucket.io/welcome.html

We’ll see what happens when Shortcuts lands in 10.16, but I’d say the chances of Apple event automation having a long and healthy life ahead are 50/50, at best.

[srikz]

I think AppleScript and Automator is/will be deprecated and the replacement would be Shortcuts present on iOS.

I think the main developer of AppleScript left Apple last year.

I think I read something on these lines on HN, I may be remembering things slightly wrong

[chipotle_coyote]

The language itself is pretty bonkers, to be sure. I think the Amiga probably did this better with ARexx, simply because Rexx was much better for "friendly scripting language." I was going to say I'd made my peace with AppleScript, but it'd be more honest to say "I've gotten better at beating AppleScript into submission."

iOS Workflow/Shortcuts is what Automator should have been in a lot of ways. If Automator was superseded by a macOS version of Shortcuts, I'd actually love it, as long as it didn't lose any of Automator's functionality. (All they'd really need to do is add Shortcuts that run AppleScripts and shell scripts, I think, and be able to use automator actions exposed by applications.)

[hhas01]

Expect Shortcuts to land in 10.16. Most of the plumbing’s already in 10.15; it’s just not public yet.

https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/11359563313603461...