AppleScript dead slow in moving files to folder - applescript

Question

I'm trying to move a bunch of files into folders, based on the file creation date. Using the script below, the rate of move is about 1 file per second. 64000 files to go.
Script timed out when I tried
set myFiles to items of myFolder whose name ends with "jpg"
repeat with aFile in myFiles
So now I process file by file and only checking folder existing when the date comparison failed sped up the process only marginally. I've tried the obvious
set myDayBuddies to items of myFolder whose creation date is theFileDate
but this too, did not help really much. I suspect Finder reads the whole folder content time and time again, creating huge overhead.
What is the proper method of speeding up this any further? In PHP I know I can read entries from a directory stream, one by one.
Script:
tell application "Finder"
set myFolder to choose folder
set prevDateString to ""
repeat while true
try
set aFile to first item of myFolder whose name ends with "jpg"
set theFileDate to (the creation date of aFile)
set theDateString to my composedate(theFileDate)
if (theDateString is not prevDateString) then
if not (exists folder ((myFolder & theDateString) as text)) then
make new folder at myFolder with properties {name:theDateString}
end if
set prevDateString to theDateString
set destPath to (((myFolder as text) & theDateString) as alias)
end if
move aFile to destPath
on error
return
end try
end repeat
end tell
on composedate(aDate)
set y to (year of aDate as integer) as string
set m to (month of aDate as integer) as string
set d to (day of aDate as integer) as string
if length of m < 2 then
set m to "0" & m
end if
if length of d < 2 then
set d to "0" & d
end if
set myDateString to y & m & d
return myDateString
end composedate

Answer 1

System Events was created to take much of the load off the Finder. The Finder is slow so use system events when possible. I'm not sure how it will perform on a folder with 64000 files but give it a try.
set myFolder to choose folder
tell application "System Events"
set f to files of myFolder whose name extension is "jpg"
end tell
And if system events is still too slow then applescript alone isn't appropriate for such a large folder. You'll have to go to using the command line even though you said you don't want to. Something like this should be faster...
set myFolder to (choose folder) as text
set jpgFiles to paragraphs of (do shell script "ls " & quoted form of POSIX path of myFolder & " | grep 'jpg$'")
repeat with aFile in jpgFiles
set filePath to myFolder & aFile
tell application "System Events"
set theFileDate to creation date of file filePath
-- do more stuff
end tell
end repeat