Customer Reviews
Spaghetti - By: , 04 Mar 2006 
Programmers refer to spaghetti code; this book is spaghetti writing.
It is practically useless for learning Applescript (even for a programmer like me) & the author wastes far too much time on pointless topics such as trying to impress the reader by showing why AppleScript is like LISP.
It’s the worst computer book I have ever read & I don’t recommend it as a first book on Applescript for anyone.
Exhaustive and Serious 'Warts and All' Reference. - By: Brennan Young, 04 Dec 2004 
One thing is very clear: Matt Neuberg has really fathomed the depths of Apple's unique little scripting languagein a more or less successful attempt to document all the quirks, gotchas & roadblocks that plague the average scripter. I would question how useful this would be for a beginner, but it is a superb reference, going into exhaustive detail on every level of the language & its use.
In fact, this book should have been called 'AppleScript Annoyances', because it really tackles the things which are likely to have you pulling your hair out, instead of pretending it is just going to be plain sailing.
The book opens with one of the most interesting chapters, showing the thought process that Matt goes throughin writing a script to perform some tedious authoring task for the book itself (hooking up illustrationsin framemaker). He goes out of his way to describe things that are skimmed overin most other books, without dumbing down: Just because AppleScript is a scripting language from Apple, doesn't mean that it is designed for idiots who can't work out how to use a two button mouse. Matt clearly has a healthy disrespect for the whole thing, which I find refreshing.
If you aren't put off by someone telling you how it really is (and it gets ugly sometimes: that chapter on scope... brrrr) then this book has all the answers. If you'd rather maintain the fantasy that everythingin AppleScript makes perfect, intuitive sense, then this book will shake up your paradigms, but maybe make your life easierin the process.
Useful information presented in an unfocussed format. - By: Daniel Woods, 15 Jul 2004 
Unfortunately, this title doesn't live up to the standards typical of O'Reilly publications. The actual information content is good: the author definitely knows his stuff. But being a technical wizard doesn't impart the ability to write well. And it shows.
It takes until chapter 5 before the actual basic syntax of the language is discussed, Chapters 1-4 are busy talking about how flexible AppleScript is (very); how to think when tackling a problem (pretty much the same way as with any other language, thanks); & presenting customised solutions to problems that the author has experienced but that everyone else will view as utterly irrelevent. In addition to this, the author has trouble keeping his eltitist ego under control, with examples of calling scripts from Ruby, Python, Perl & Objective-C:in each case, essentially nothing more than shelling out to 'osascript'. His deliberations on 'broken' parts of AppleScript are pompous, as is his comparison of just about every feature to another languagein his repertoire at every opportunity. In this book on Apple's scripting language, he appears keen to remind us mere mortals how many 'real' languages he knows.
The treatment of the AppleScript language & its quirks is thorough despite these criticisms, although the examples given are far from clear & the topics lack structure.
In summary, there's informationin this book that you'll have a hard time finding anywhere else, but you'll have to work to extract it and, if you're anything like me, won't enjoy the process.
