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Closed 9 years ago.
I am going to develop an application for OS X and I need some scripting engine for it.
The purpose of the scripts is to receive a text on their input (HTML file in most cases), parse it in some way and return the data to my app. These scripts should be easily editable by the users, therefore they should have some common used syntax like C or pascal.
Can you suggest some lightweight solution for this?
Thanks!
PS. I am new to OS X development, trying to switch from Windows...
Two suggestions:
Javascript, try the V8 engine. http://code.google.com/p/v8/ Very popular, likely familiar syntax to many.
Lua. http://www.lua.org Extremely lightweight and simple to connect. If your script editors write scripts for World of Warcraft, for example, they will know Lua.
In general AppleScript/Automator actions are easy for the end user to work with since the technology includes a GUI for building scripts without much programming knowledge. For experienced developers used to other languages, they can be a bit too friendly/loose and have a somewhat different syntax (more like plain English). The good thing is that they can also call other languages as needed, so a developer familiar with Perl or whatever could incorporate that into an AppleScript or Automator action.
Since you're talking about parsing text, Perl itself would be a good solution - again there's some difference in syntax, but the scripts can be rather compact and the basics of parsing aren't too difficult to learn. I haven't personally incorporated Perl into an OS X app, I've just used it on the command line, so I don't know if there are any pitfalls to that approach.
One additional advantage to AppleScript is that you can make your application itself scriptable so that users could automate the functions of your application into a larger workflow.
I would suggest downloading the free TextWrangler application by Bare Bones Software, or a similar developer's text editor, to see how they incorporate scripting into the application. This may give you additional insight into your approach.
LUA seems to be a good choice.
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Closed 10 years ago.
I have a bunch of C code accessing database (Oracle, DB2 and Sybase) through Embedded SQL : the base code is the same, but with three different precompilers, three sort of executables are built, one for each database/platform.
I works perfectly fine, but we need now migrate to a solution using ODBC access.
The problem is : what tools / api can be used ? A direct way seems to write a custom precompiler (or modify an existent) to wrap all SQL and host variables calls to calls on an ODBC connection.
Can somebody recommend tools for that task or api to keep it simple ?
Or is it a simpler way, another approach ?
Thank you
As is usual for such situations, there are likely no off shelf answers; people's codebases always have a number of surprise in them, and the combination prevents a COTs tool from ever being economical for individual situations.
What you want is a program transformation system (PTS), with a C front end, that can be customized to parse embedded SQL. Such tools can apply source-to-source rewrite rules ("if you see this pattern, then replace it by that pattern") to solve the problem.
These tools require some pretty technical effort to configure. In your case, you'd have to adjust a C front end to handle embedded SQL; that's typically not in C parsers. (How is it that you can process this stuff in its current form?) You'll have trouble with the C preprocessor, because people do abusive things with it that really violate a parsers nested-structures-view of the universe. Then you'll have to write and test the rules.
This effort is a sunk cost to be traded against the effort of doing the work by hand or some more ad hoc scripting (e.g., Perl) that partially does the job leaving you to clean it up. Our experience is that it is not worth the trouble below 100K SLOC, and that you have no chance of manual/ad hoc remediation above 1M SLOC, and in between your mileage will vary.
At these intermediate sizes, you can agonize over the tradeoffs; that costs energy and time, too. Sometimes its just better to bite the bullet and do it any way you can an clean it up.
Our DMS Software Reengineering Toolkit is one of these PTS. It has a customizable C parser and preprocessor, precisely to help deal with these configuration troubles. The other PTSs mentioned in the Wikipedia article, do not, I beleive, have any serious C parser associated with them. (I'm the guy behind DMS).
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Closed 10 years ago.
I have some programming knowledge, I can write console applications in Python, Java, and I can do both console and GUI programs with VB.net. Since I know VB.net, I though I should learn VBScript. I read online that it is a language used on Internet Explorer, but the tech department at my school writes applications in a text editor and saves them as a .vbs and runs them on the computer(no browser needed). I have used this method to make a simple Message Box(MsgBox"message here",4,"title here"). Is this a single language able to be used in both environments, or are these two separate things?
I read online that it is a language used on Internet Explorer...
Yes, VBScript can be used as an alternative to JavaScript. But, in practice, nobody uses VBScript for web application development because it works only in Internet Explorer.
...but the tech department at my school writes applications in a text editor and saves them as a .vbs and runs them on the computer(no browser needed).
Yes, and many problems can be solved with VBScript. VBScript is a complete programming language and it can access the COM subsystem in Windows. What I like about VBScript is that it is available on all Windows systems. So, it is wonderful solution when you have restrictions that prohibit you from installing other language interpreters/runtimes such as the Java JRE, Python, Perl, Ruby, etc.
For an example of what you can do with VBScript, see this example which demonstrates reading a key from the Windows Registry.
And check out my post here for a pointer to downloading Microsoft's authoritative VBScript reference as a Windows help file.
All that said, Microsoft has pretty much stopped enhancing VBScript and is putting its energy into PowerShell. PowerShell is very much aimed at System Adminstrators and it is an exceptionally capable language when used for that purpose. However, the last time I looked, PowerShell was weak with respect to creating your own classes. (Or at least it was awkward.) As an application developer, though, when I am solving a problem with VBScript, I typically make use of classes via the Class keyword extensively. A lot of folks don't know this, but you can do object-oriented programming in VBScript, and I do so often.
Check out this example that shows how you can develop your own classes via the Class keyword in VBScript.
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Closed 11 years ago.
my development style brings me to write a lot of throw-away "assisting" code,
whether for automatic generation of code parts, semi-automated testing, and generally to build dummies, prototypes or temporary "sparring partners" for the main development; I know I'm not the only one...
since I frequently work both under windows and Unicies, I'd like to non-exclusively focus on a single "swiss army knife" tool that can work in both the environments with limited differences, that would allow me to do usual stuff like text parsing, db access, sockets, nontrivial filesystem and process manipulation
until now under unix I've used a bit of perl and massive amounts of shell scripts, but the latter are a bit limited and perl... despite being very capable and having modules for an incredible array of duties, sincerely I find it too "hostile" for me for something that goes beyond 100 lines of code.
what would you suggest?
scripting is not a requirement, it would be ok to use more static-styled languages IF it makes development faster (getting programs to actually do their work and possibly in a human readable state) and if it doesn't become nightmarish to handle errors/exception and to adapt to dynamic environments (e.g. I don't like to hardwire data /db table structure in my code, especially by hand).
I've been intrigued by python, ruby, but maybe groovy (with its ability to access the huge class library and his compact syntax) or something else is better suited
thanks a lot in advance!
(meanwhile, on a completely different note, scala looks really tempting just for the cleanliness of it, but that's - probably - a completely different story, unless you tell me the opposite...?)
Python is arguably one of the best choices. Its biggest benefit is that it has a huge built-in library for doing all sorts of stuff. It is also mature, very cross-platform, actively developed, and has many support options (mailing lists, newsgroups, etc).
In addition, it has a built-in GUI toolkit (tkinter) for those times when you need to write a quick GUI to get input from a user or display output from a running process. And if you don't like tkinter, there are other cross-platform GUI toolkits available.
I suggest Python.
For me it has a sweet spot of good libraries, documentation, community, cross-platform functionality, and ease of writing/reading.
It fills a similar niche to Perl's, but if you find Perl to be 'hostile' for longer scripts, you will probably like Python, especially when compared to Ruby, which feels more Perl-y, IMHO.
As an aside, all of these are quite easy to just try out - why not do that?
Then you can decide for yourself instead of trusting the questionable wisdom of an online forum (:
I think that Python and Ruby are your best bets, depending on exactly how you think and code.
I personally find Python EXTREMELY readable and its syntax is highly intuitive. I've heard Python described as "pseudo-code plus colons."
On the other hand, once you get around its slightly bizarre syntax, Ruby makes for high-speed development. It's built around DRY principles and convention-before-configuration, which is great for rapid prototyping.
There are other languages--especially Haskell and the Lisp dialects--that can make for super-rapid prototyping, but they don't have as large a supportive community, so there's a shortage in library and discussion supply.
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Closed 10 years ago.
What are some good alternatives to Windows batch scripts? We have a number of them and they are very "clunky" to work with. As our group is familiar with Java is Groovy a good option?
A lot of our scripts are used to prep dev databases so they involve a lot of cd mydir, hg fetch, sqlplus ..., etc..
If you are interested in developing scripts for Windows than a technology developed specifically for Windows, like the PowerShell, is a sensible choice.
While groovy will probably allow you achieve your goal I don't think there is a particular advantage that it could offer.
Saying that, you have to consider familiarity factor and learning curve. You say developers have experience with Java and Groovy in which case running ant tasks via the groovy DSL can prove easier than learning PowerShell.
Regardless, consider developing your scripts using the TDD approach. Groovy offers plenty of frameworks (try Spock for example) while there are also ways to achieve that for PowerShell.
Powershell, VBScript, Perl, Python. There are no shortages of good scripting languages that have a Windows implementation.
It kind of depends on what you are looking to do with your scripts. BASH on windows via cygwin might be a good thing to try.
You might also wanna look at good old Ant, it has targets for copying, executing shell commands, etc. Gradle might be even better, as it supports inline Groovy code, including easy loops and conditions, which Ant lacks.
PowerShell 2.0 onward is a good choice. It will come along with Windows Server 2008 R2 or windows 7 onward. you don't need to install anything on top of these O/S version.
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Closed 9 years ago.
I have a great idea for a 3D network game, and I've concluded that it is possible to write it in Java as an applet which will live under the web browser, just like a full software in C++. And it will look and feel the same.
The main advantage of Java on C++ is that with Java you can play without downloading any software. I have already thought about the download of the graphics, sound, etc but I found a solution for it. RuneScape just proves that it is possible.
So my first question is, should my game live on a web browser or on the operating system? I think that in a web browser it is much more portable, although you need install Java and stuff. But the fact is, that most MMO games are currently not in the web. If you suggest in a software so please suggest a language either - C++ or something more productive like Python or C#?
So after choosing a language, I need a graphics solution. Should I write directly with OpenGL/DirectX or use a game engine? What game engine should I use? Ogre? jMonkeyEngine?
What's your opinion?
Thank you!
P.S: Please don't use answers like "Use what you know".
Despite your last point, use whatever you can, and what will provide the biggest user base possible.
Applets are old, and no longer used as extensively as they used to. Flash or Silverlight are the "standard" for web games now. It may be worth checking out JavaFX based your interest in using Java, it's supposedly a replacement for what applets should have been. I've not actually used JavaFX, nor do I hear much about it, take that as you wish. The biggest benefit of deploying to the web is as you've said, the user base is larger and people are more likely to give your game a play. The downside is that you end up using the likes of Flash or equivalent for the development process.
If you go down the route of building a standalone application, you can use whatever you want. C++, Java, C#, Python and so on are all viable options. You can make games in most languages. C++ is the industry standard but ignore this fact. You can make amazing looking and performing games in any language if you are a hobbyist developer. What I'm trying to say is that unless you are building the next big hit, using C++ can be avoided. In contrast to web applications, your users will require a framework/API that you use. For example, they'll need OpenGL/DirectX/XNA and so forth. As for XNA vs DirectX vs OpenGL? It matters not, your language choice will most likely dictate your choice of graphics API/Framework. So I'll leave this point up to yourself for research.
As for should you use an engine? It depends.
Are you making a game which is complex enough to warrant an engine?
Do you wish to just focus on the game, rather than the engine?
Do you feel comfortable learning an existing engine?
Do you feel comfortable producing the required components (collision etc..) on your own?
Other factors come into this, but it may be worth just focusing on the game at hand. You can easily write a simple enough engine for what you require. By doing this, you'll avoid licensing and deployment issues.
One option to consider is the Unity 3D game engine - in addition to being a fairly powerful development tool, it has several cross-platform deployment options. You can build both a stand-alone executable (for Windows and Mac, not yet Linux), and a web-browser version, which answers your first question about deploying on the web versus OS. You can do both.
It also uses both Javascript and C# (and Boo, a variant of Python) for scripting languages. These are based on Mono, the Open-Source version of .NET, so it's not just a gaming platform, but has access to all of .NET's abilities (well, those implemented in Mono anyway).
See the Licensing page for a long list of Unity's features (the Basic version is free). And check out the list of Unity-based games, of which the first is Tiger Woods PGA Tour Online, by Electronic Arts.
A game that just runs as an applet will not be percieved as a real game to most hardcore gamers.
If you want a game that is played only by noobs, the java might be an option, otherwise drop it and stick to a language that allows to actually produce executables.
Talking about the library, there are not so many you can't try them all and chose the one you like the most, so... do just that.