Trying to avoid religious arguments, I 'd say that AppleScript provides the best entry-level versatility, compactness and effectiveness for inter-application (inter-network) scripting.
However, Visual Basic and some others mentioned provide a higher level of functionality and sophistication, up to the level that applications are made to support it.
Generally, it is far easier for developers to make Mac apps scriptable. However, this is no guarantee that this will happen. Apple threw Applescript over the wall, to leave the most intriguing parts to scripting addition developers. It inherits the genericness of the user-language that it was to be, since the days of Steve Wozniak’s garage. Developers know that.
Example 1: Microsoft Office suite has a pretty complete AppleScript dictionary, but provides a richer Visual Basic interface.
Example 2: Javascript provides the best multi-platform support, but remains relatively slow.
Example 3: Applescript suffers from a lack of support (limited user interface, frequent syntax changes, documentation “upon request”) It deserves better.
Eelco Houwink