Endlessly Curious

I have been playing with Python recently.

Here is a little script to change a mac’s desktop wallpaper to the file specified as the first argument of the script:

import subprocess,sys,os

# Raw apple script
Script = """/usr/bin/osascript<<END
tell application "Finder"
set desktop picture to POSIX file "%s"
end tell
END"""

# get the file name which is the first argument passed to this script
filename = sys.argv[1] 

# run the apple script inserting the filename
subprocess.Popen(Script%filename,shell=True)

Or using the nifty appscript module for python:

import sys
from appscript import app, mactypes

# get the file name which is the first argument passed to this script
fileName = sys.argv[1]

# use the appscript module to change the desktop wallpaper
app('Finder').desktop_picture.set(mactypes.File(fileName))

The more I use Python the more I like it.  I used to think Python was at a similar level to C# in terms of how high a level a programming language it is.  After using Python for a bit I now realise that Python is a higher level programming language than C#.  Out of the languages I use reguarally it would seem that Python is the highest level language followed by C# then C++ and finally C.