Eventually, I could even pipe text between cooperative tasks.
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20220917140844/http://swag.outpo...
https://github.com/brudgers/VectorScriptTools/tree/master/Kl...
Vectorworks 2008 was scripted in a Pacal variant that required compiling. Creating a script required many "bureaucratic" operations.
More bureaucracy to load the script to test it.
Looking back, I think in all seriousness that punchcards were the point of reference for the programmers who came up with it...that the development tooling was designed to digitalize a punchcard workflow.
Coming from Autocad, I wanted a scripting workflow that looked like its. Put a list of commands in a text file and they would be run through in order.
That's the background...well that and the sub-prime mortgage meltdown bringing about a future with no work -- be careful what you ask for.
The Vectorscript documentation allowed scripting Vectorworks "tables" -- a spreadsheet like data structure.
Vectorscript also had an evil...I mean eval. [1]
Thus, Kludgeomatic.
From within the drawing I could open one those internal "spreadsheets" and create an ordered list of API calls to Vectorworks commands, and run that list with the click of a button.
Since the spreadsheet was a drawing object, it would be saved with the drawing and could be externalized into a library like an other drawing object for use in other projects.
I thought I was on the road to fame and fortune.
I was wrong about that, but it is still really cool.
[1] Later I wrote a script that could execute arbitrary code the users computer. Digitalized punch cards, like I said.