AppleScript: The Definitive Guide

Script

A number of terms that are common in connection with AppleScript are used in a somewhat bewildering variety of senses. The word “script” is particularly liable to be tossed loosely about. This is unfortunate, especially since some of the meanings of “script” are important and rather technical. It’s not a word one can do completely without, and so it is all the more crucial that its meaning not be blurred. This section tries to clarify the main ways in which the word “script” is used.

Script as Drive

To “script” an application is to automate it, to drive it, to target it. People say, “I’d like to script the Finder to rename some files automatically.” There is an implication that the Finder already has the power to do things to files, and that we are merely taking advantage of this power by dictating programmatically a sequence of actions that Finder should take.

This sense of “script” is formalized in the way some sources define a " scripting language.” This quotation comes from the ECMAScript Language Specification (http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/ECMA-262.htm):

A scripting language is a programming language that is used to manipulate, customise, and automate the facilities of an existing system. In such systems, useful functionality is already available through a user interface, and the scripting language is a mechanism for exposing that functionality to program control. In this way, the existing system is said to provide a host environment of objects ...