Perhaps 'easier to learn' isn't the right term ... 'less scary' would probably be more acurate -- there are a large number of people who are turned off when they see languages that rely heavily on punctuation and other symbol characters to do their work, just because they're not used to seeing it in their every day use. They see it, and are immediately turned off, which make it impossible to convince them that it's worth learning.

You're right in that mistaking it for English can cause no end of headaches for people who don't understand the concepts of a 'Structured English' language, where you don't have as much freedom as with a true natural language. I wouldn't suggest that you try to write AppleScript without using Apple's 'Script Editor' which will quickly highlight some problems. Typically, I don't write Applescript from scratch--I use it to record my tasks, then go back and modify the script recorded to make it more generic.

Those times that I've written AppleScript without recording, I've made heavy use of the Dictionaries feature in Script Editor.


In reply to Re^3: Where does Perl fit into OS X? by jhourcle
in thread Where does Perl fit into OS X? by Acolyte

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":



  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.