The Birth of Tcl • Hacker News Board

Re: The Birth of Tcl

#11

Post by epage » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 6:59 PM UTC

sedatk wrote: post #2

I like Tcl a lot. The design is simple, extremely easy to learn, and yet the code is still maintainable (((looking at you LISP))). Among the scripting languages I've used, I probably liked Tcl the most. I wish it didn't fall out of favor.

I've been evaluating different languages for writing plugins and TCL really seems tempting. Unfortunately, I've been leaning towards Lua just due to its pervasiveness (today). I also vaguely remember one of the top contenders having some more esoteric parts that concerned me. I can't remember how much of that was TCL, Lua, or both.

Re: The Birth of Tcl

#12

Post by bitwize » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 7:00 PM UTC

monetus wrote: post #9

bitwize wrote: post #7

Tcl is insane. The language is straight out of The Book (Anathem). By that I mean, the semantics are not just wrong, they're so wrong they risk warping your brain. But the language somehow remains useful, powerful, and flexible. And there is still no faster way to get from zero to working GUI in the 2020s on a conventional computing environment (Windows or some Unix). So it's fantastic for prototyping at the very lea…

What drives you the most nuts about the syntax?

1) I realize that Tcl isn't technically stringly typed on the inside anymore, but extensionally it still appears so.

2) Attempting to understand how variable scoping works in Tcl is like attempting to stare into the maw of some eldritch horror, deeper than the earth itself by some trick of other-space, and lined with infinite rows of writhing, fang-tipped cilia. The central tenet of lexical scoping -- that bindings visible outside a set of braces should also be visible inside unless overridden with a specified inner binding, didn't occur to Ousterhout when he designed Tcl and Tcl has to deal with the implications of that. 'upvar' sometimes works, but sometimes doesn't, and in some cases you have to reason through when your code is being called and what's visible then.

Re: The Birth of Tcl

#13

Post by pjmlp » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 7:03 PM UTC

sedatk wrote: post #2

I like Tcl a lot. The design is simple, extremely easy to learn, and yet the code is still maintainable (((looking at you LISP))). Among the scripting languages I've used, I probably liked Tcl the most. I wish it didn't fall out of favor.

I was a big Tcl user between 1999 and 2002, our startup was an heavy user, however the experience of slowly replacing Tcl with C code, made me never choose languages without either JIT or AOT compiler ever again, other than for scripting tasks.

Re: The Birth of Tcl

#14

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 7:05 PM UTC

andrepd wrote: post #10

sedatk wrote: post #2

I like Tcl a lot. The design is simple, extremely easy to learn, and yet the code is still maintainable (((looking at you LISP))). Among the scripting languages I've used, I probably liked Tcl the most. I wish it didn't fall out of favor.

Off-topic, but you should be aware that the (((triple parentheses))) are apparently an anti-semitic thing. Just so you know it can be misinterpreted in some contexts x)

[deleted]

Re: The Birth of Tcl

#15

Post by johnisgood » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 7:40 PM UTC

Tcl and Rebol are great. The code is compact, very easy to understand and quick to write, especially Rebol. You can do GUI in both Tcl/Tk and Rebol as well. You might want to check Rebol out as well: http://www.rebol.com/docs/expert-intro.html (or http://www.rebol.com/docs/design-objectives.html).

Re: The Birth of Tcl

#16

Post by sokoloff » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 7:43 PM UTC

25 years ago, I worked on a team that built a full online retail brokerage in Tcl (including web page generation). It made me love the language as a developer, but the runtime performance on late 1990s hardware (especially pre-Tcl8) was pretty poor.

I've since reached for Tcl several times per year and enjoy it each time.

Re: The Birth of Tcl

#17

Post by larsrc » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 7:46 PM UTC

bitwize wrote: post #12

monetus wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What drives you the most nuts about the syntax?

1) I realize that Tcl isn't technically stringly typed on the inside anymore, but extensionally it still appears so. 2) Attempting to understand how variable scoping works in Tcl is like attempting to stare into the maw of some eldritch horror, deeper than the earth itself by some trick of other-space, and lined with infinite rows of writhing, fang-tipped cilia. The central tenet of lexical scoping -- that bindings v…

I was thinking exactly in the eldritch horror direction. Thanks for writing that, you have saved me the unpleasantness of finding out exactly what it was that made me loathe Tcl.

Re: The Birth of Tcl

#18

Post by MisterTea » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 7:47 PM UTC

andrepd wrote: post #10

sedatk wrote: post #2

I like Tcl a lot. The design is simple, extremely easy to learn, and yet the code is still maintainable (((looking at you LISP))). Among the scripting languages I've used, I probably liked Tcl the most. I wish it didn't fall out of favor.

Off-topic, but you should be aware that the (((triple parentheses))) are apparently an anti-semitic thing. Just so you know it can be misinterpreted in some contexts x)

When idiots started using the "echo" tags in tech oriented forums, people would jokingly ask where all these damn lisp programmers were coming from.

Re: The Birth of Tcl

#19

Post by p4l4g4 » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 7:50 PM UTC

sedatk wrote: post #2

I like Tcl a lot. The design is simple, extremely easy to learn, and yet the code is still maintainable (((looking at you LISP))). Among the scripting languages I've used, I probably liked Tcl the most. I wish it didn't fall out of favor.

Same here! Tcl/tk is a lovely little language and much under appreciated by many! Interesting software started in tcl, such as redis, expect and sqlite. Still use some tcl through environment-modules, in my personal work setup.

Have to say that lisps are very nice too, in my opinion. Started learning a little common lisp recently and was surprised by its elegance. I think lisps can be very maintainable, when care is taken. It's easy to write unreadable programs, but this also holds for tcl. With great power comes great responsibility.

Re: The Birth of Tcl

#20

Post by rudasn » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 7:52 PM UTC

If I remember correctly, Tcl was the first language I coded in. That was in late 90s, I asked my dad to pay some hosting company so I could have IRC bots. I don't think I ever understood how thinhs really worked, but I remember I was able to type "commands" in IRC channels and my bots would do stuff, like send private messages, join channels, etc.