Comment by CharlesW
2 hours ago
Out of curiosity, are you now or have you ever been a "Mac person"? I'm curious if you've ever gone down the rabbit hole on Apple's history of technologies for what I think you'd call "malleable computing" at the OS level, like Open Scripting Architecture/AppleScript and now App Intents?
Short answer, yes I am a Mac guy. AFAIK, both AppleScript and Shortcuts/Intents are mechanisms Apple has provided to support orchestration between apps. I do not consider them “malleable computing” mechanisms as they do not allow for adapting and reshaping the apps themselves. That said, AppleScript and Shortcuts are only as useful as the support given to them by 3rd party apps, which IMHO has always been mid.
If you're into malleable computing you'd never have been a "Mac person"
Yeah, NeXTSTEP is notoriously a locked-down, untweakable OS. It's not like anyone was able to use it to program anything of consequence.
How was OSA/AppleScript not an OS-level malleable computing layer?
I don't know first hand of anyone who ever used it for anything. Maybe I knew the wrong Mac users (mostly teachers).