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Why You Should Not Use Tcl (1994)

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Re: Why You Should Not Use Tcl (1994)

#3

See also Ousterhout's reply: https://groups.google.com/g/comp.lang.tcl/c/7JXGt-Uxqag/m/vQ...

Ousterhout's main argument seems to be:

> This is the proposition that you should use two languages for a large software system: one, such as C or C++, for manipulating the complex internal data structures where performance is key, and another, such as Tcl, for writing small-ish scripts that tie together the C pieces and are used for extensions.

Thankfully, today, we have great programming languages, like Python, that people enjoy using both for large software systems and for writing small-ish scripts.

So, I suppose Stallman was right? I definitely agree with him that Unix shell syntax is awful.

Re: Why You Should Not Use Tcl (1994)

#4

See also Ousterhout's reply: https://groups.google.com/g/comp.lang.tcl/c/7JXGt-Uxqag/m/vQ...

Ousterhout's main argument seems to be: > This is the proposition that you should use two languages for a large software system: one, such as C or C++, for manipulating the complex internal data structures where performance is key, and another, such as Tcl, for writing small-ish scripts that tie together the C pieces and are used for extensions. Thankfully, today, we have great programming languages, like Python, tha…

I can't say I enjoy large software systems written in Python.

Re: Why You Should Not Use Tcl (1994)

#5

See also Ousterhout's reply: https://groups.google.com/g/comp.lang.tcl/c/7JXGt-Uxqag/m/vQ...

Ousterhout's main argument seems to be: > This is the proposition that you should use two languages for a large software system: one, such as C or C++, for manipulating the complex internal data structures where performance is key, and another, such as Tcl, for writing small-ish scripts that tie together the C pieces and are used for extensions. Thankfully, today, we have great programming languages, like Python, tha…

Stallman is always right, if you're willing to wait long enough.

Re: Why You Should Not Use Tcl (1994)

#6

See also Ousterhout's reply: https://groups.google.com/g/comp.lang.tcl/c/7JXGt-Uxqag/m/vQ...

Ousterhout's main argument seems to be: > This is the proposition that you should use two languages for a large software system: one, such as C or C++, for manipulating the complex internal data structures where performance is key, and another, such as Tcl, for writing small-ish scripts that tie together the C pieces and are used for extensions. Thankfully, today, we have great programming languages, like Python, tha…

Was he though? I don't really see Scheme, Guile, etc. really being the embeddable language of choice. These days it seems to be Lua.

Re: Why You Should Not Use Tcl (1994)

#8
Recent and related:

A brief interview with Tcl creator John Ousterhout (2023) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41017367 - July 2024 (56 comments)

Previous discussions of current submission:

Why you should not use Tcl (1994) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14944103 - Aug 2017 (52 comments)

Why you should not use Tcl (1994, "The Tcl War") - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7071479 - Jan 2014 (1 comment)

Re: Why You Should Not Use Tcl (1994)

#9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ousterhout's main argument seems to be: > This is the proposition that you should use two languages for a large software system: one, such as C or C++, for manipulating the complex internal data structures where performance is key, and another, such as Tcl, for writing small-ish scripts that tie together the C pieces and are used for extensions. Thankfully, today, we have great programming languages, like Python, tha…

Stallman is always right, if you're willing to wait long enough.

if Stallman is the answer, it must be a pretty intolerant question.
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