Category: Software and Programming

Microsoft’s Windows Scripting documentation. I found a good scripting site over the weekend (all it’s examples were in Jscript, BTW), but Google can’t find it now.

On Thursday, I asked why no one is writing serious stuff as HTA (HTML Applications, an Internet Explorer technology). Looks like the technology isn’t only “tainted” by being Microsoft’s “Creature”, but also because, like it’s other half, WSH (Windows Scripting Host), it’s the premium Virus writing technology. Here’s a nasty exploit demonstrating this, and as usual, Anti-Virus software is useless against this.

Two useful Doc Javascript columns: Scripting the File System, Part I (doesn’t look like he got around to Part II just yet, but I guess there are docs) and OLE Automation in JavaScript.

I’m thinking of writing a HTA version of my Word2HTML converter (or something else that parses Word into some more useful format, like pod). I wonder why there aren’t any people actually writing HTAs anywhere – Internet Explorer 5 (or is it 4+) is probably a much more widely deployed scripting engine than Perl, Python and Java.

Do people think that Javascript sucks or something?

Perl stuff:
When to use local in Perl. Also definitely worth reading is the relevant section of the long-but-excellent perlsub man page, which explains all the gory details of how subroutines, functions and variable scope work in Perl.

Articles on DHTML development on Apple’s site Most of them were written, I think, by Danny Goodman, although his credit is hidden. If it works in the Mac browsers, it’ll hopefully work in the Windows browsers (and Linux browsers – well, some of them…):
The nicest thing about them is the copyright notice / License:

// Copyright © 2000 by Apple Computer, Inc., All Rights Reserved.
//
// You may incorporate this Apple sample code into your own code
// without restriction. This Apple sample code has been provided "AS IS"
// and the responsibility for its operation is yours. You may redistribute
// this code, but you are not permitted to redistribute it as
// "Apple sample code" after having made changes.