Adam Goldstein was still in high school when he wrote this book. I read this back to back with XCode 2. They are interesting books because they don't talk a lot about programming in detail. AppleScript is of course a funky little language that escaped out of HyperCard and survived several iterations of the Macintosh OS and is still around today. Hailed as innovative for it's English-like syntax, AppleScript was meant to be a language used by the every day user.

Goldstein doesn't directly discuss programming constructs or best practices. Theses sorts of tips slip out in the break-out boxes littered through out the book. Instead, he puts the focus on tasks -- like how to save all of the open documents in an application, or how to move all the files in a folder, or how to rotate pictures by making a droplet. This works except when he needs to introduce a way to solve a more complex task. For instance, he describes a hash system as being useful for students taking chemistry who want to look up an element by number. Perhaps this is true, but it stretches the notion of a task.

The book is readable and usable but like all computer books, is becoming dated too quickly.

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