Looking to learn how to write apple/shell scripts: any pointers?

Hi,
That entirely depends on what you want to do. First you need to figure out if you mean shell scripts, or apple scripts, as there's a marked difference:

* A shell script is run from within the shell. It uses terminal commands bound together to do interesting things. You can make shell scripts on OS X and Linux, while Windows calls them Batch Scripts.

* An Apple Script is a script written in Apple Script, and compiled using the Script editor found in your mac's Utilities folder. You use it to tell various applications to do various things.

So, if you're wanting a utility script to do something useful, but without pretty printing it's probably a shell script you want.

When you say you want to make some scripts for use with VoiceOver, what do you mean by that?

I've written a bunch, and honestly, the starting point was hitting up google with something like:
How to do x in apple script
Where x is the action: Tell the time, write an email, hack into the Pentagon.

Once you've done that you can figure out what others have done, and you find some cool things out along the way.

If it's more deep-level programming you're looking for, then you've got a plethora of languages available to you, starting from C and C++, Swift, Objective C, Python, Ruby, PHP, JavaScript. Obviously what you want to do largely decides what language you use... If you want to write websites, C++ is a poor choice. If you want to write a kernel, PHP is a poor choice.

To get started, hit up google with something like
Getting started with apple script
Or
Getting started with shell scripts

Hope this helps, and sorry I went on a little.

Take care,
Chris.

I'd like to learn about applescript though. any good startingpoints, besides google? I found a thing from 2009. has it changed a lot since then, or can I go on that?