Products · Product
AppleScript
Raised as a usability problem by 48 people on Hacker News over 20 years (2007–2026), in 36 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Hard to discover how to do things; natural language syntax unintuitiveUnreviewed
20072026- English-like syntax is hard to use and its docs are hard to search2024-07-26
- Natural-language syntax is perverse and hard to read; idioms are hard to discover2024-04-21
- English-like syntax makes programs feel like prose yet still fail to read as easy to write or understand2023-02-02
Scripts need obscure, poorly documented magic words for objectsUnreviewed
20072026- Hard to discover the correct syntax when writing scripts2024-11-26
- Poor tooling and awful documentation make it hard to discover how to script2023-09-18
- Hard to write scripts without knowing obscure, poorly documented magic words for objects2020-09-20
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 50 complaints
- Scripting a UI requires a full programming language, and scripts can't tell when a UI task is done2026-09-24
- Errors raised without a try-catch are too unclear to diagnose easily2026-01-09
- Hard to discover the correct syntax when writing scripts2024-11-26
- Documentation is so poor the author can't work out why launchd jobs fail silently2024-07-28
- English-like syntax is hard to use and its docs are hard to search2024-07-26
- Natural-language syntax is perverse and hard to read; idioms are hard to discover2024-04-21
- Poor tooling and awful documentation make it hard to discover how to script2023-09-18
- Scripts can't tell when long-running tasks finish, forcing file-polling boilerplate2023-09-17
- AppleScript documentation is bad, making APIs hard to discover2023-03-27
- English-like syntax makes programs feel like prose yet still fail to read as easy to write or understand2023-02-02
- Writing AppleScript is tedious and UI automation is flaky and racy2023-01-05
- Page says scripts can be rule actions but never explains how to use them2022-10-27
- Hard to build a usable scripting layer; Cocoa Scripting mapping of ordered arrays is awkward2022-09-07
- Syntax is hard to work with and edge cases make it unpredictable2022-09-06
- Supposedly easy scripting language requires hard, unforgiving effort to master2022-03-04
- Natural-language-style syntax is confusing, more so than regular code2022-03-03
- Syntax is deeply confusing and hard to write, relying on trial and error2022-03-03
- Keeps writing plausible conversational syntax that doesn't work, wasting hours without reaching the goal2022-03-03
- Bewildering, barely documented language that is hard to program and frequently fails2022-03-03
- English-like keyword syntax is hard to parse and scan at a glance2021-04-21
- Writing nontrivial code is hard and the IDE is worthless for debugging2021-04-10
- Text input pop-up is dismissed when the user hits enter2021-03-20
- Counter-intuitive idiosyncrasies that can be frustrating when automating on Mac2020-09-28
- Hard to write scripts without knowing obscure, poorly documented magic words for objects2020-09-20
- Users can't discover AppleScript nouns, verbs, or syntax, and documentation is incomplete.2020-02-28
- Programmers misread its OO-like syntax and get confused when it behaves unpredictably2019-12-16
- AppleScript and scripting bridges too restricted to be usable for window management2019-12-16
- Apple events are slow to use because they require many small one-object messages2019-12-09
- Writing anything in AppleScript is painful2019-09-16
- Described as an absolute nightmare to have to use2018-11-18
- Developers struggle to build user-friendly query-driven interfaces due to poor docs and support2018-06-05
- Each app's AppleScript dictionary is idiosyncratic, so scripting differs app to app2018-06-03
- AppleScript is a hot mess and JavaScript scripting is undocumented2018-06-03
- Developers must guess dictionary terms and syntax with no clear semantics2018-06-03
- Syntax and Script Editor are confusing; JavaScript docs require mentally translating from AppleScript2018-06-03
- Safari dev tools for debugging OSA scripts are brittle, crashing or printing unhelpful identifiers2017-11-15
- Anything remotely complex feels weird and unintuitive to write2017-02-17
- Finds the AppleScript language painful to use due to unnecessary syntactic sugar2016-11-22
- Small edits cause subtle syntax errors that baffle users; hard to write2016-11-21
- Natural-language syntax is verbose, unintuitive and ambiguous, adding complexity to simple programs2016-11-21
- Hard to discover how to do things; natural language syntax is unintuitive2016-11-21
- Must copy-paste a TIDs handler into every script for simple find-and-replace2016-11-18
- No syntax docs, outdated library docs, and a sparse poorly designed API2016-05-24
- Nonsensical error messages from bugs require a debugger to decode2014-09-17
- Knowing the exact phrasing for commands is horrible and error-prone2014-09-17
- Hard to write initially; the language is awkward and terrible to use2014-09-17
- Scripting dictionaries across apps are inconsistent, contradictory, incomplete and confusing for users2014-06-09
- Cryptic parse errors make it hard to know what went wrong2014-06-08
- Hard to guess syntax because apps use different concepts for the same things2013-05-16
- Same-looking code works or fails unpredictably, with no clear mental model to follow2011-11-13