Re: Re: Adventures in TeXas

On Mon, Apr 8, 2013 at 3:38 PM, jhnmarkley <[email protected]> wrote:
> --- In [email protected], dmccunney <dennis.mccunney@...> wrote:
>>
>> Thanks for chiming in, John.
>>
>> I mentioned Apt in my original post.  As it happens, the last
>> developer on Apt is in the Android world these days, and wrote
>> something that appears to be comparable to Apt called Tasker.  You
>> might want to take a look.  Not open source, but really cheap
>> shareware. It's available from http://tasker.dinglisch.net/
>>
>> There is an alpha scripting layer for Android, allowing folks to write
>> and run code in things like Python and Perl, so it you feel like
>> dabbling in something other than pscripts, there's a sandbox to play
>> in.  See http://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/
>
> Thanks Dennis-
> I've been using Tasker for quite a while, have 14 different profiles running now.

Heh.  This does not come as a surprise.

> I have the scripting layer (SL4A) but have never pursued Python as I have no comp science/programming background other than learning pScripting from Paul's manual, and I bogged down.  Maybe this will reactivate me (maybe not).

I haven't looked in detail, but my impression is that it's akin to
Windows Scripting Host: an interface layer that gives script languages
access to to the OS through an API.  Python isn't the only script
language available.

As for learning, I've seen Python suggested as a good introductory
language.  It's relatively lightweight, object oriented, has the
standard language constructs expected of a current language, and is
cross-platform.  (The desktop parser that creates Plucker documents
from HTML files is written in Python, and available for Windows, Mac
OS/X, and Linux.  Alas, the Linux version won't install on Ubuntu - it
hasn't been maintained in too long, and Ubuntu expects to see stuff it
doesn't have.)

While Python is an interpreted language, it's a hybrid: Python code
compiles to a tokenized binary form which is actually executed by the
Python runtime.  I've seen an assortment of full applications written
in Python, because current hardware is fast enough to run it with
acceptable performance.

There was a partial version of Python for PalmOS called Pippy, as well
as several flavors of BASIC, Java, Lisp, Logo, Rexx, Smalltalk, Tcl,
and an implementation of C (Onboard C) that compiled code *on* the
PDA.  (Peter Thorstenson's lovely tejpWriter viewer/editor is written
in OnBoard C)   There's even more than one implementation of Brainfuck
for PalmOS.  (BF is one of a class of "write only" languages, whose
code is *intended* to be hard to understand, and the name is a
description of what it does to the developer writing in it.  BF
originated on the Amiga, and the first BF compiled was all of 240
bytes in size.  The developer later optimized that down to 200.  :-)
)

I was sorry when HP swallowed Palm, and then went through management
changes. Palm's WebOS looked *very* interesting, and like Android,
could be used in things that weren't phones.   Former HP CEO Mark Hurd
announced plans to put WebOS on everything HP produced, which would
have been truly disruptive, but his successors couldn't back away fast
enough.  Android's programming model is "Write it in Java."  WebOS's
is "Write it in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript".

>   ~ John
______
Dennis
https://plus.google.com/u/0/105128793974319004519


------------------------------------

Latest pedit/pToolSet/LapTopHack at http://www.osuweb.net/~pc/pca/pc_all.zip
pedit/pToolSet/LapTopHack scripting info/resources at http://www.peditors.com
Peditors Forum http://groups.yahoo.com/group/peditors
Unsubscribe by writing to peditors-unsubscribe-hHKSG33Tihh4sT85+ipIM4ckdKdSAMto@public.gmane.org! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/peditors/

<*> Your email settings:
    Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/peditors/join
    (Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
    [email protected] 
    [email protected]

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    [email protected]

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/