What’s more odd to me, is that Apple has dropped the PyObjC support but gave AppleScript a giant boost with Cocoa-AppleScript. Don’t get me wrong, I like AppleScript fine, but it sure isn’t as flexible as Python or Ruby[1].
Anyway, if your thinking about making any AppleScript-Cocoa projects, here’s a very good tutorial over at MacScripter.
UPDATE: There are also great resources over at MacAutomation.com, including what looks like a good book.
I have a strong feelings that most of these projects are self-created by folks at Apple rather than being a true strategy by the Apple administration. As people leave, move to different projects, or just plain get busy the projects drift or die. PyObjC was interesting and I’ve used it occasionally for things like clipboard writing. But it was always an odd bridge. Apple never really dropped PyObjC I think – but it’s been two years since the last update.
The whole Applescript bridge to Cocoa never made any sense to me. Who uses it? But then Apple’s entire scripting strategy (or lack thereof) has been problematic. Especially now that sandboxing is coming. I keep hoping they are rethinking the whole shebang (which really needs to be done) but I keep fearing that they just don’t really care about the pro market.
I have a suspicion that the AppleScript bridge is directly precisely at sandboxing. I think they are trying to develop a “Lite” version of Cocoa to enforce/enable sandboxing for their scripting language. I’ve heard a number of people worry about the future of AppleScript. I think the cocoa bridge is the future. Maybe that’s good. I know I would never have started out hacking around in AppleScript-Cocoa like I did plain old AS many years ago. AS was just so much more approachable to a beginner.