Inspiring

Question

Bridge Running on JavaScript? for the Lounge!

Forum|Forum|9 years ago
July 26, 2016
3 replies
1002 views

I'm currently reading the excellent book Masterminds of Programming: Conversations with the Creators of Major Programming Languages (O'REILLY).

In chapter 16 they interview John Warnock and Charles Geschke of Postscript, and following is an excerpt of the interview that I found particularly interesting:

Even using JavaScript to script the HTML document model is not for the faint of heart sometimes.
John: No, it’s not. I do that all the time and it’s not for the faint of heart, especially since the character sets are different and almost everything is different about the two environments.
But anyway, people do. If you want to automate document production, the best way to do it is to get into JavaScript and script the incredible typesetting engines inside of InDesign or the incredible imaging engines inside of Photoshop. You can build massive numbers of things in an automated way in a fairly straightforward fashion.
[...]
You’re just translating back and forth between object models.
John: That’s right. It is a lot of JavaScript, but the fact that it hangs together is amazing. It’s completely portable.

What I find interesting are three things:

This book was released in 2009. I don't think that scripting was a feature then that Adobe 'never communicated' about. (Unless, the interview was taken a couple of years before the actual book got released, and maybe at that time scripting was a hidden feature).
Does Bridge still run on JavaScript? I find that interesting.
And finally, it seems that the OM was never written initially to benefit us users, rather to make it easier for Adobe to extend their programs. (I feel bertrayed... )

Am I the only one surprised here? Or this all common knowledge that I just bumped into?

Waiting to hear from you,

Ari

[Asking the correct forum helps... Moved from non-technical Forum Lounge to specific Program forum... Mod]

This topic has been closed for replies.

Nancy OShea

Community Expert

Nothing new to me. Think about it. How many 3rd party extensions do you use? If the code base were not comprehensible & extendible, extension developers would have been out of a job. JavaScript is a really good fit for that.

Nancy O.

Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert

Cactus Cowboy

Inspiring

First of all let me state that I'm not a programmer at all. But my brother was and we'd talk about programming whenever I had a specific question about something that puzzled me about why or how a program did this or that. He'd patiently answer me in as simple an explanation that he figured I'd understand. He once passed me a copy of VB6 as I'd shown interest in that direction but told me to stick to art and graphics as that was my strong point. True to his word, Visual Basic was a little over-whelming for me. I don't care how many "Programming for Dummies" or "Learn Programming in 24 hrs" books you read you have to have collaboration with others that are at your level or above to get a firm foundation on coding.

JavaScript is just another programming language that lightens the code and/or extends the functionality of a program IMO. So to the many of us who are just end users It really doesn't matter what the programmers are doing in the kitchen as long as what they serve us works. Whether they're using C++ or .net or active x or java or a combination of all mentioned makes little diffence to me at least. Now if you want to talk about ICONS or Animation or maybe even Graphics; that's meat on the table pal.

AriEssAuthor

Inspiring

To whichever moderator that moved this post from The Lounge to Bridge General Discussion:

It seems like you really did not read the post and jumped to conclusions about the post's content. First of all, this is not a 'question' in the formal sense. I'm not looking for any help whatsoever. I just wanted to start a informal discussion about the nature of scripting in Adobe programs and as aside, about Bridge. This really does not belong in the Bridge forums, rather in The Lounge. Please reconsider your decision (after reading the post, of course...)

Thanks.

Chuck Uebele

Community Expert

Interesting article. I didn't move it to the Bridge forum, but if you really want it in the lounge, I'll move it back there, although the Bridge forum does seem like a good place for it.

AriEssAuthor

Inspiring

Thanks! The reason I don't want it in the Bridge forums is because I want it to have a different kind of 'exposure'.

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