And a history api - with a few settings, and making the psd file (not a flattened jpeg etc export) - photoshop gives similar information to a series of high frequency vcs commits.

Granted, since Photoshop itself is closed source (and on a subscription model) there's some very strong limits to scientific replication of a process.

But one could do something similar with gimp, additionally aided by python scripts.

So yeah, Photoshop bad; cli good isn't as clever as all that as a blanket statement (not implying anyone said exactly that; just making an observation).

I see the talk/article is about "data" science ; but the headline reminded me about an Alan Kay talk about teaching - where there's a clip of kids filming a fallen object and then juxtapositioning the video with a rendered sequence based on (v=at etc): whole video worth watching, but see the "16:17" link in the transcript ("Now, what if we want to look at this more closely?"):

https://www.ted.com/talks/alan_kay_shares_a_powerful_idea_ab...

Yes, Photoshop has macros (they call them “Actions”).

These days, Photoshop even has (multiple) JavaScript interpreters (including an instance of node.js they call “Generator”) built in to enable automation using an API that provides access to most (but not all) actions that can be executed via the GUI.

I have been working with these for a side project and the documentation isn’t great, but I have been able to get up and running relatively quickly.

Yes.