Obviously there is going to be some disagreement on the type of scripting language. But let's say AppleScript is made for beginners. We want the following
(1) Beginners can easily read AppleScript
(2) Beginners can easily modify existing scripts to customize them
(3) Beginners can easily write brand new AppleScript
I will grant you that (1) is satisfied. It's easy to READ, yes.
But is "natural language" the best way to fulfill 2 and 3?
The fact there are different syntax forms for doing the same thing works against 3. It makes the language less consistent and more complicated.
There is a practical reason why you generally want one way of doing something. It's because it makes it easier to remember! As a beginner works with scripts, the proper syntax will sink in through repetition. This is Education 1-2-3. Actually it applies to experts too. I have been reading AppleScript for three days and I have seen so many different ways of doing the same thing that I probably don't even realize they are the same. That's really quite awful from an educational standpoint--two scripts that do the same thing but look different? Tell me with a straight face that makes it easy for beginners to figure out the language in a more deep way.
Second, natural language gives a superficial understanding but works against deep understanding. An important part of syntax is understanding the role that each identifier plays. In a traditional programming language, the role is almost always clear from the form of the statement. However, I am finding it difficult when scanning AppleScript to make out which are the reserved words, which relate more to statements, which relate more to field accessors or modifiers, which words are redundant, etc.
The "natural language" is trying to protect beginners from having to think about this, but is that really a good thing in the end? Don't beginners have to confront syntactical issues eventually?
How about those statements that require parentheses? They force a beginner to confront operator precedence rules. Those rules are "kind of sort of" in English but it doesn't have *consistency* in English. Therefore, the similarity of these syntactical constructions to natural language is doing nothing to train one's mind to have a consistent viewpoint and is probably doing harm.
