The Open Scripting Architecture : Automating , Integrating , and Customizing Applications

The Open Scripting Architecture combines aspects of object-oriented programming, distributed computation, database queries, and dynamic languages into a powerful and practical system for automation, integration, and customization of applications and system services. Applications are integrated together with distributed messaging. The messages operate upon user-level application objects, like windows and spreadsheet cells, that are identified by queries over properties and document containment structure. A general-purpose scripting language automates message sending and handling, and supports persistence and mobile objects. Applications call on scripting services to customize the behavior of their objects through a generic script management API.