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AutoHotkey v2 Official Release Announcement

autohotkey.com

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Re: AutoHotkey v2 Official Release Announcement

#31
post #10
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no such thing on any other OS. I thought the Mac comparable was Keyboard Maestro. Are the two that different (asks someone who hasn't used Windows since the '90s)? https://www.keyboardmaestro.com

Maestro is more like a Macro Recorder while AutoHotkey is a programming language for automation. Also AHK community is huge.

> AutoHotkey is a programming language for automation

That's sort of what AppleScript is supposed to be on MacOS I thought? I'm not familiar enough with either AutoHotKey or AppleScript to be able to compare them though

Re: AutoHotkey v2 Official Release Announcement

#33

I saw there's a python library that just lets you write autohotkey scripts in actual python code. I'd rather try that if I was going to rewrite my v1 scripts. AHK is awesome but the scripting language was never good. The new one looks like it has some better syntax, but native python support would be a much better solution for a lot of people.

Why? The AHK python library isn't going to be so cleanly abstracted so that a different automation engine (eg hammerspoon w/ lua on macOS) can be plugged in, so the code is always going up be tightly coupled to AHK, and Python support is likely to be second-class to support for its own language. So other than some obsessive need to standardize on a single language which will never be won, what does Python buy?

Syntax

Re: AutoHotkey v2 Official Release Announcement

#34
post #19

I ended up using AHK for komorebi[1] because I was still new to Windows when I started writing it and I didn't wanna have to write a tiling window manager AND a hotkey daemon. I even ended up generating a nice little AHK library to wrap around CLI commands that sent socket messages to the window manager to make it easier to write a configuration. Ultimately the syntax changes make it impossible to fully reproduce the…

Can't you just right click on you script and pick "compile" or something similar to pack the v1 interpreter with your code? I remember a functionality like that existing.

I don't think it's quite that simple with this use case[1][2], but I'm happy to be proven wrong!

[1]: https://github.com/LGUG2Z/komorebi/blob/master/derive-ahk/sr...

[2]: https://github.com/LGUG2Z/komorebi/blob/master/komorebic.lib...

Re: AutoHotkey v2 Official Release Announcement

#35
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? The AHK python library isn't going to be so cleanly abstracted so that a different automation engine (eg hammerspoon w/ lua on macOS) can be plugged in, so the code is always going up be tightly coupled to AHK, and Python support is likely to be second-class to support for its own language. So other than some obsessive need to standardize on a single language which will never be won, what does Python buy?

Syntax

In today's polyglot software development world, one real difference between someone who's a programmer and a software developer is fluency in multiple languages. That might come off better when it's Python and GoLang/C++/Rust instead of AHK, but realistically, every domain has their own DSLs.

A competent software developer should be able to check their ego and use curly brackets instead of PEP 8 4 spaces if that is what the situation demands. And also be able to resist the urge to reformat an entire Python codebase that was written to 2 spaces.

Re: AutoHotkey v2 Official Release Announcement

#36
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? The AHK python library isn't going to be so cleanly abstracted so that a different automation engine (eg hammerspoon w/ lua on macOS) can be plugged in, so the code is always going up be tightly coupled to AHK, and Python support is likely to be second-class to support for its own language. So other than some obsessive need to standardize on a single language which will never be won, what does Python buy?

Syntax

I really don't see how AHK's script language is somehow not intuitive or simple enough. The syntax is pretty easy to grasp.

You have all the tools "natively" to even pick positions on windows, its pretty extensive too.

Re: AutoHotkey v2 Official Release Announcement

#37
post #36
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Syntax

I really don't see how AHK's script language is somehow not intuitive or simple enough. The syntax is pretty easy to grasp. You have all the tools "natively" to even pick positions on windows, its pretty extensive too.

I write AHK scripts like once or twice and then forget about it. I can't remember the sytax so I'm constantly googling. I'd rather have it in a language I already know well. Also as a long time programmer who knows a lot of languages, the AHK syntax (at least in V1) was anything but intuitive. It had very weird conventions.

Re: AutoHotkey v2 Official Release Announcement

#38
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't see how AHK's script language is somehow not intuitive or simple enough. The syntax is pretty easy to grasp. You have all the tools "natively" to even pick positions on windows, its pretty extensive too.

I write AHK scripts like once or twice and then forget about it. I can't remember the sytax so I'm constantly googling. I'd rather have it in a language I already know well. Also as a long time programmer who knows a lot of languages, the AHK syntax (at least in V1) was anything but intuitive. It had very weird conventions.

Fair enough

Re: AutoHotkey v2 Official Release Announcement

#40
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Syntax

In today's polyglot software development world, one real difference between someone who's a programmer and a software developer is fluency in multiple languages. That might come off better when it's Python and GoLang/C++/Rust instead of AHK, but realistically, every domain has their own DSLs. A competent software developer should be able to check their ego and use curly brackets instead of PEP 8 4 spaces if that is w…

Who's using AHK as a developer? I use it a a hobbyist. I don't want to have to remember a proprietary useless language syntax.
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