i’m officially suffering from the tiger fever, so I decided to repost an article I wrote some time ago.
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in praise of automator

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i should confess that I’m all excited about the new automator feature in tiger.
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susan barnes in an article for EME (not on the web, sorry dudes), pointed out that the GUI was a step away from the literature-thinking of the command line, and one step closer to the visual, television-driven culture. the steves (jobs & wozniak, the apple founders) were just creating a narrative that they (and the world at large) were familiar with.
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but while it was easier to interact with the computer using mouse, icons and windows, it put the creation of programs a layer below, hidden from view. it created a gap between the users and the programmers.
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we went away from vanevar bush’s vision - the augmentation machine, a device intended to help humans to manage information and make informed decisions - and alan turing as well - what’s the use of an universal machine (a generic machine that could emulate others and change its own behavior) if its users can’t program it?
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thus, we’re experiencing the end-point of this gap… one side, bloated programs trying to conjure any whim of millions of users. the other side, stupid hacks and workarounds from end-users painfully trying to change the behaviors of their machines.
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automator brings back the programming to the masses, using applescript as building blocks that can be connected, GUI-style, to form larger programs. it has the potential to, given time, crumble the bloated programs’ paradigm (if i want to adjust the curves on a flatten .jpg file, why should photoshop open all unused libraries - layers, typography, color separation, filters… - that slow down my task?).
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it’s easy to create, easy to assemble, easy to distribute. if i can’t build a process from scratch, i can assimilate a more complex one - made from a more experienced user, there are already some actionscript kits offered to automate audio and imaging tasks - to my own, and adapt it to my needs. and bring it back to the community, if I will.
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automator is just the point of the iceberg. the alchemical mix was made when steve jobs threw over the classic system and melt together his easy-to-use, usability-wise, end-user base with the hardcore programming, structure-savvy, unix power-users. it was risky and luckily it was a success. now all we have to do is to reap the benefits and celebrate.
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so please, if you’re a programmer or information theorist and is still not excited with the possibilities, go to apple keynote speech video, 01:25:12 and dream on.