61 replies to this topic

[JSLover]

I can only guess, but I'd say that companies are slow to change. They are stuck in their corporate bureaucratic ways & don't want to change.

They likely just post a job: Hey can someone write this in C++?

They need to actually post what they want the program to do & have the programmer choose the correct language to write it in.

For a simple example, VLC is written in Qt, which is fine, sorta, but the "Go to time" dialog is really crappy/hard to use. I've written a nice "replacement" Gui in AutoHotkey for this, but to get that into the main VLC, I -- or someone -- would need to convert that to Qt. I can write AutoHotkey in my sleep, but I can't even write Qt in my nightmares. I'm not saying Qt is bad but it's just alot more involved to download/install/write/compile/test with.

[Mickers]

I work for a company that doesn't even realize that almost al lthere low level operations are coded with ahk. The scripts that were home grown with this language have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars. The fact that ahk is almost like code for dummies makes it easy to learn and quick to build scripts that would have taken hundreds of hours longer in any other language and large amount of money whereas a nubie equipped with these forums can build the same thing for free in half the time.

[haccduder]

regardless of what it can and can't do, most people use it to cheat at video games. Therefor it has a reputation as being just kind of a toy language for those who have heard of it at all.

[Tinybandaid]

We actually use it at my office. We do not use it often since most items are done in more mainstream languages.

[LiquidGravity]

I use it myself to aid in doing my job at a small business.

In addition to the excellent point brought up by JSLover; I feel the following are the major reasons AHK is not taken seriously in the work place:

#1) False Positives
http://www.donationc...php?topic=28137
http://www.autohotke...le=FAQ#Virus.3F

#2) Source code exposed in "compiled" .exe
http://www.autohotke...=FAQ#Protection

[girlgamer]

Another part of the picture is a company's need for secrecy in their daily operations. Almost every company has competition for the same market. If they were to publish the code they use to speed up daily operations using a tool like AutoHotkey, it could nullify certain advantages they have in the marketplace. So i doubt that any "real" solutions would be published on sites and forums like this where where their competition could find them.

[fragman]

I think these automation tasks are most of the time rather specific. It's probably easier to write one yourself than to try to find one that exactly fits your needs.

[Mickers]

I think these automation tasks are most of the time rather specific. It's probably easier to write one yourself than to try to find one that exactly fits your needs.

If a smaller compayn was able to sift through all the several dozen ahk scripts used at the office they'd prolly find about 0 that would apply to anything they do specifically. It would only be after heavy modifications that it would help them at all. They might as well just write one from scratch.

[fischgeek]

I work for a vendor of Microsoft (on a MS campus) that supports the Microsoft Dynamics product lines. I have recently been moved into my own position due to my implementations of AHK into their world. My job now consists of improving and streamlining processes in the local office across 5 lines of business (going global soon) using any method I deem necessary. AHK is not always the answer, ut it bis prodomintely the foundation of what I do.

[Miguel7]

AHK is actually a huge part of my job, but I work in a very unique position.  But I think for most major projects, AHK has a few limits that older programming languages don't.  Don't get me wrong - AHK rocks, and idk what I'd do without it - but there are some things it doesn't do (yet!) such as:

     -  Encryption and other security measures (though I heard someone actually wrote an encryption algorithm in AHK!  Again, AHK rocks)

     -  Databases (creating/reading/updating/deleting info)

     -  XML (XML parsing functionality can be created easily, but it would have to be built)

     -  Processing HTTP requests/responses (though again, I've hP script - definitely not impossible)

     -  Other platforms (but everyone I've ever worked for uses Windows, so this may or may not be significant).

 

And there could be others as well.  None of these are truly beyond the reach of AHK (and in fact I could give more ideas of how to do each of the above tasks) and it'll only get better with time - but if I were asked to develop, say, a program for managing patient data for a local doctor's office, I wouldn't go with AHK.  Again, don't get me wrong - I use it for the overwhelming majority of my programming projects (work-related or otherwise), but any time there are massive amounts of money or personal information involved, those are the kinds of things that development teams need to take into consideration.

 

I do think though that with time, AHK will outgrow its current reputation of a "gamer's toy language" (though I hope it stays "code for dummies" LOL).  It's already simpler and more powerful than any other language I know, and that in and of itself makes it more efficient.  And now Microsoft has this new hybrid laptop-tablet thing that runs Windows 8 (Don't recall the name; can't afford one yet lol) which my boss says will run AHK.  Then someday an Android/iOS guru will develop something like Xamarin Studio, to essentially port AHK scripts to those platforms.  I think that the bottom line is, as technology continues to change and improve, if AHK keeps going with it, it'll get there.

 

Here's an example that's a good laugh: JavaScript.  idk about you, but when I think back to about 15 years ago, JavaScript was this annoying little language that was only good for mouseovers and pop-ups.  Of course the internet itself was a whole different ball game back then, but look how it's changed.  These days with Ajax, JQuery, JSON, Node.js etc. JavaScript is just about the AHK of the web.  I googled "autohotkey jobs" and this topic was the first to come up.  I googled "javascript jobs" and before I got to the O in "jobs" it was already 3rd on the suggestion list.  Yeah, AHK will get there.

[tidbit]

atleast XML and Processing HTTP (and possibly databases) can be added to your AHK if you upgrade from 1.0 to 1.1+. Go here: 

http://ahkscript.org/

 

Using the built-in COM stuff you can easily do xml/html parsing/info getting/updating/managing/whatever.

Documented demo I made (gets headlines from yahoo news):

#singleInstance, force

; ---------------------------------------
; ------------- HTTPREQUEST -------------
; ---------------------------------------
; documentation: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa383979(v=vs.85).aspx
; this is COM stuff.
; This section gets the XML data from yahoos RSS news feed
; I'm no COM expert so I don't really know any of the technical terms or how it works ...
; ... I just read the confusing documentation until it works.

url=http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/mostviewed             ; the URL to the news feed.
WebRequest := ComObjCreate("WinHttp.WinHttpRequest.5.1") ; This gets a pointer (I think) to the WinHttpRequest thingy created.
WebRequest.Open("GET", url)                              ; This sends a GET request to the specified website
WebRequest.Send()                                        ; ???
xmldata:=WebRequest.ResponseText                         ; now we get the actual text, the XML data. we save it to a variable: xmldata
; show us the retrieved XML
; MsgBox, %xmldata%


; -------------------------------
; ------------- XML -------------
; -------------------------------
; IMPORTANT: this relies on the httprequest stuff above!

; documentation: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms757878(v=vs.85).aspx
; this is COM stuff.
; this section parses the retrieved XML data using Microsofts built-in XML COM stuff.

doc:=ComObjCreate("MSXML2.DOMdocument.6.0")  ; Get & create a pointer to some XML object thingy.
doc.async := false                           ; ???
doc.loadXML(xmldata)                         ; Load the data we got above into an XML object.


; this while-loop parses all "title" nodes in the XML data  until there is
; ... no more nodes with a title (its 'text' [gathered from the .text method] will be blank)
; != means "not equal" and "" checks if something is blank.

while (doc.selectSingleNode("/rss/channel/item[" A_Index "]/title").text!="")
   ListOfTitles.=A_Index ". " doc.selectSingleNode("/rss/channel/item[" A_Index "]/title").text "`n"

; the .= operator appends stuff to the end of a variable. `n means "make a new line"
; so the variable ListOfTitles appends a counter (a_index) followed by some ...
; ... XML COM stuff to get the text of the current node (based off of a_index), followed by
; ... a new line, to start the next index from the loop.

; here we display some simple msgboxes. `n makes a newline.
msgbox, Top headlines from Yahoo:`n-----`n%ListOfTitles%
msgbox, note: this is a simple example. Yahoo News has URLs`, descriptions and other information. I kept this simple by only getting the titles. You could combine all the data and make a fully featured news app.
ExitApp

loadXML(ByRef data)
{
   o := ComObjCreate("MSXML2.DOMDocument.6.0")
   o.async := false
   o.loadXML(data)
   return o
}
esc::exitapp

[nnnik]

 

 

Encryption and other security measures.

Not true.

You ! just dont use them.

Standards like AES etc. can be used when you use DlCall.

 

 

Databases (creating/reading/updating/deleting info)

Same reason.

there is a giant library made by IsNull.

You can search it.

[girlgamer]

And if we could get a platform independent version of AutoHotkey that would run on Apple and Android and Linux We'd RULE THE WORLD! (But most definitely Linux and Android)