Coding Autoit & RESPECT

[AutoXenon]

imo Autoit is synonymous with the "closest way of interacting with WinAPI. "

If you know Autoit, you essentially know the ins-and-outs of winapi.

In fact, just give me any barebones language that can DllCall, and I can write anything. This is all thanks to what I learned from Autoit.

Edited November 29, 2022 by AutoXenon

[philpw99]

For me, AutoIt is a godsend. Can't remember how many times it enables me to do amazing things, which made my boss happy.

Yeah, you can ask someone from college to build a C++ app which can delete thousands of certain junk files, or update database for some situation, or monitor the servers with particular criteria. By the time he finishes one, I already finish all and on vacation. 😄

Lots of times. People just need "quick and dirty" approach, not "delicate and complicate" one.

[SOLVE-SMART]

Hi @philpw99,

while I also really like AutoIt for the simplicity, the concepts and the syntax, I sadly also have to agree about your statement: 

  On 1/2/2023 at 6:47 AM, philpw99 said:

[...] Lots of times. People just need "quick and dirty" approach, not "delicate and complicate" one.

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Indeed, I also experienced this many times. But when it comes to a professional work with specific customer requirements, this is just madness and never a good approach. For private project I don't mind, but as I see "quick and dirty" approaches at work, where the codebase is shared with team members and have to be clean, transparent, understandable, I become sensitive and I have to mention over and over again, about the importance of clean and well structured software.

Best regards
Sven

________________
Stay innovative!

[noellarkin]

I'm a small business owner using Autoit, not a programmer, so I can't comment on advanced features - - - but AutoIt has been my go-to over the past year for a lot of my work. I like how simple AutoIt is, and I also like the aesthetics of it - - Functions and codeblocks are clearly defined, variable declarations are visible, there aren't any unnecessary brackets etc - - I have a tougher time understanding Python code than AutoIt. What matters to me most is speed of implementation, and AutoIt is far ahead of the pack (I tried Python, AutoHotkey, and even some RPA software packages like OpenRPA before deciding on using AutoIt in my workflows).

I'm actually quite surprised that AutoIt isn't more popular - - usually in industries, tools that are percieved to be more "entry level" have the largest userbase, the most libraries etc. In fact, my only issue with AutoIt (and this isn't an issue with the language itself, more so the use case) is that it doesn't seem to have libraries for DataOps/ML (Python seems to have a disproportionate number of these libraries).

Looking past that, however, IMO AutoIt is probably the best investment if someone (especially people owning or working in small businesses) wants to begin implementing RPA solutions quickly and easily, at minimal cost.

[philpw99]

  On 1/2/2023 at 7:44 AM, SOLVE-SMART said:

Indeed, I also experienced this many times. But when it comes to a professional work with specific customer requirements, this is just madness and never a good approach. For private project I don't mind, but as I see "quick and dirty" approaches at work, where the codebase is shared with team members and have to be clean, transparent, understandable, I become sensitive and I have to mention over and over again, about the importance of clean and well structured software.

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AutoIt also can be "clean, transparent, understandable". In fact whenever I make bigger AutoIt programs, I will always follow a strict set of rules, like name conventions and how functions are defined, how errors are handled. Because when it comes to fixing bugs involves tens of AutoIt scripts, well defined scripts are really important.

AutoIt is an unique language that not only you can do "quick and dirty", but also "delicate and complicate". When AutoIt scripts get bigger, it can do really complicated stuff, right down to calling many Win_API functions to achieve low level operations.

BTW, I recommend ISN AutoIt Studio for the next level GUI programming. It will save you tons of time. Also check out their testproject2, which shows how to use MetroGUI in ISN. It probably will blow your mind.

 

[SOLVE-SMART]

  On 1/2/2023 at 5:56 PM, philpw99 said:

AutoIt also can be "clean, transparent, understandable" [...] follow a strict set of rules, like name conventions and how functions are defined, how errors are handled [...]

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That's exactly what I meant @philpw99 👍 . I do this and modularization too, to handle my programs (no matter how big they are).
You can do it with AutoIt and you should do it, yes.

But one thing shouldn't be the case: Your program shouldn't be complicated, then it's not clean.
Anyway, I really like AutoIt and I agree with @Dana86:

  On 2/20/2020 at 9:14 PM, Dana86 said:

[...] I find Autoit to be highly undervalued & underestimated in the engineering world [...]

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For those of us who enjoy AutoIt, it brings several opportunities for several use cases. For those who don't try AutoIt and just read a short summary about it, it will be a "scripting" language which isn't mighty. I personally don't mind about their opinions unless they talk business wise about it in a bad way. In such cases I will always back up AutoIt and their community 😇 .

Best regards
Sven

________________
Stay innovative!