[Help] Thesis about AHK!

[MasterFocus]

Dear friends and forum members,

As some of you may be aware, I intend to get my bachelor's degree in information systems by the end of this year.
This means I have to write a final, lengthy paper before the end of this semester.
But guess what? It's going to be about AutoHotkey!
I noticed a lack of papers regarding AHK specifically: most of them focus on another subject and simply cite AHK very quickly as a tool for automating a certain step in a much broader scenario.

I've been in love with this community for many years now and I'm sure I can rely on you guys for some help yet again.

I explained to my teachers that most of my bibliography will be composed by hyperlinks.
With so many changes (IPBoards, phpBB, etc) over the last years, I can't seem to find many interesting topics/posts I recall from the past.
Therefore, I could use any links you may find/have (recent or not) about AHK itself, its story throughout the years, its pros and cons, comparisons to AutoIt and others, surveys, articles from other websites, topics/posts from other non-AHK forums, etc.

I remember occasionally seeing testimonials of people who actually managed to increase production and/or get a promotion thanks to AutoHotkey. Some successuflly used AHK to reduce hand tension over extended periods. And there was a long-time moderator (I don't recall who exactly) that decided to pursue a project to help people with disabilities using AutoHotkey.
Do you know where I can find such stories? Also, have you ever thought about writing your own testimonial? Why not do it now?

Since my focus must be AHK itself, some technical stuff shall be welcome as well: how it works internally, why C++ to begin with, how AHK's syntax evolved, etc.

For those wondering: as the pratical part of my thesis, I intend to assist on some frequent tasks at my university regarding things like the registration of new students. I'll probably start sketching some scripts next week.

Please feel free to contribute and ask any questions!
And once again, thank you all in advance!

[tank]

how is this?
MS Lean Screen
First call resolution and trending issue tracking
Escalation tracking and training opportunity identified
45-60 seconds reduction from average handle time
MRA
reduction of 15 FTE from the manual process
as much as 20 million in fraud. Last Christmas/ New Year caught 2.2 million in fraud with this process
Human error in validating refunds is eliminated for over 20 k refunds per day
LP iTSYS (and the related reporting)
Assist investigators speed up and reduce errors in building a risk profile for merchant accounts during charge-back resolution

[MasterFocus]

Thanks for your reply, tank.
As I talked to you on IRC, I need hyperlinks and/or detailed testimonials to provide as a valid source.
As this is the final paper, it has some academic standards and the teachers may not believe everything I mention is true.
Being AHK my subject, of course the bibliography will be filled with hyperlinks.
But I can't convince the teachers you actually did those things from just a sentence.
I'd need much more detailed stories and/or background links to other sources that prove what you're saying.

[joedf]

Nice! Glad to hear this.
Theres this video recently posted, https://youtu.be/lIFE7h3m40U?t=2m50s
And I'm sure you could find some articles on lifehacker or techcrunch

[just me]

We had some little projects to support handicapped people in the German forum(s). Search for the member julius there. Maybe you can contact him on http://www.kommhelp.de/index.php/hilfsm ... es-und-das and get further information.

[MasterFocus]

Quick update: I finally got my degree, thanks to AutoHotkey!

Got a 10 out of 10 and many compliments from the teachers.
I just have to fix very minor issues and submit the final version by the end of January.

I'm really happy because there's a lack of formal academic articles regarding AutoHotkey itself, but I was able to create a comprehensive thesis with a huge compilation of references, covering AHK's full history, language characteristics, syntax, examples and related software.
Additionally, I created a script which automates a certain task and will effectively help my course's secretariat (starting in 2016). Practical implementations are rarely put to use after a thesis, so this is actually a great feat.

[joedf]

Very nice!
Hope we'll get to see this thesis of yours!
Congrats!

[tidbit]

+1 "Hope we'll get to see this thesis of yours! "

Congrats!

[guest3456]

congrats my friend

[nnnik]

Sounds like a good idea.
Im curious to see what you created since I'm studying myself.

[xZomBie]

Congratulations man! +1 to see the thesis

[vasili111]

Congratulations It is nice to see AutoHotkey in science.

[Gio]

It is already freely available in the internet. 59 pages. It's in portuguese though (since he is from Brazil).

Quite easy to find, but i'm not going to link it without permission.

Parabéns pelo grau MasterFocus

Li seu trabalho e ficou muito bom.

Em relação ao caso da automação do sistema da secretaria, já fiz alguns scripts para automatizar a inserção de dados em GUIs de sistemas de terceiros aqui na empresa e, como você mencionou, a confiabilidade é um grande desafio quando o software em questão não possui uma rotina de integração própria com softwares externos. Por isso, em um software que não possuia uma rotina de integração com outros sistemas, optei por ter o usuário confirmando os dados digitados na tela antes de cada inserção (bastando clicar no enter, o que não adiciona muito tempo à rotina, mas prende o usuário na frente da tela).

Em um dos softwares que tem uma rotina de integração (através de importação de arquivos txt), no entanto, o resultado foi bem melhor, com a inclusão de centenas de cadastros ocorrendo em segundos (o AutoHotkey simplesmente cria o arquivo texto com os dados a serem importados no padrão definido pelo programador do software e depois o usuário simplesmente lança a rotina de importação do programa).

Finalmente, a melhor de todas as integrações que participei foi uma onde tive acesso ao banco de dados do sistema, o que dispensou completamente a necessidade de lançar qualquer rotina no aplicativo de terceiros, dando-me liberdade para trabalhar a automação da melhor forma possível. Infelizmente, a maioria dos desenvolvedores de software tem medo de dar acesso ao banco de dados de seus aplicativos, mesmo que a informação ali seja de propriedade dos clientes e o candidato demonstre suas qualificações, simplesmente por receio de que isso dê margem a algumas chamadas a mais ao suporte do programa deles.

Acredito que um grande entrave atual à automação de sistemas otimizada é, portanto, o fato de que os programadores criam seus aplicativos sem dedicar um pouco do seu trabalho para possibilitar que outros programadores agreguem valor ao sistema automatizando e otimizando suas rotinas para clientes específicos. Embora eles acreditem que têm razões pra isso (receio de aumento de custos de suporte), findam por limitar seus programas a um estado genérico que atenda a muitos clientes relativamente bem, mas não atende individualmente nenhum cliente da melhor forma possível, o que tira em demasia produtividade e tempo de nossos colaboradores.

Parabéns novamente e muito sucesso na sua carreira de programador.

Spoiler

Congratz on your degree MasterFocus

I've read your work and it is actually very nice

Regarding the case of automating the system in the colleges office, i've written a few scripts to automate data insertion in third party software GUIs in my company and, as you mentioned, reliability is a challenge when said softwares have no data communication routines with external softwares. Thus, in a software that had no such routine, i've opted to have the user confirming data typed into the GUI prior to saving it (all he had to do was to click enter every time, which doesn't really add much time to the routine, but ties the user to the screen).

In another software that actually had a routine to communicate data (by importing txt files), however, the end result was much better, with hundreds of data entries being inserted in a matter of seconds (AutoHotkey simply creates a text file with the data to be imported in a pattern that the software programmer had defined and than the users launches the softwares import routine).

Finally, the best of all automation routines that i was involved was in a case where i was allowed access to the systems database, which meant i had no need to launch any routine in the third-party software itself, allowing me freedom to work in the automation however way i found to be best. Unfortunately, most software developers are afraid to allow access to their apps databases, even if the data actually stored is property of their customers and the requiring individual proves to be qualified, simply because they fear that it will somehow increase the calls to their support line.

I believe that a huge obstacle to optimized system automation is, thereby, the fact that programmers create their apps without dedicating some time to allow other programmers to add to their systems eficiency by automating and optimizing its routines for each specific customer. Although they may believe they have reasons for acting like that (like fearing that it will somehow increase their support line costs), they end up limiting their systems to a more standard format that partially satisfies the broad of their customers, but doesn't actually fully satisfies any of them in the best way possible, and that results in a lot of users time and productivity wasted.

Congratulations once again for your work and i wish you to be very successful in your career as a programmer.

[joedf]

Found it!
It references the AHK foundation history page

[MasterFocus]

Yes my friends, everything went according to plan!
Once again, thank you all for the support.

As you can imagine, things didn't get less busy in 2016.
At work, I've been part of a project for quite some time now (which requires me to travel occasionally).
Our client has a restriction of which programs you can exeute on the machines.
Guess what: AHK 1.0.48.05 is allowed. My stubbornness in writing AHK1.0-compatible code finally pays off.

Despite being relatively away from the community recently (which is something I'll try to fix), I deal with AHK on a daily basis. Some things never change.

Parabéns pelo grau MasterFocus

Obrigado! Outro dia mesmo um rapaz quis tirar dúvidas comigo justamente porque encontrou o meu trabalho na internet. Fico muito feliz.

It references the AHK foundation history page

Yes, I wanted to provide as much background as possible! Hopefully I managed to assemble a complete historical guide on AHK.


If anyone else's interested, you can simply search for my thesis (access is free of charge, by default).
The title is: "O Uso do AutoHotkey como Ferramenta de Automação em Ambiente Windows"

I can't promise a quick reply, but feel free to ask anything!

Cheers!