21–30 of 105 posts
Expect remains an essential tool for dealing with interactive (but not TUI) terminal application, and in usage really fits its TCL roots perfectly. In contrast, I've found the Perl and Python ports of Expect to be somewhat awkward, not fitting those languages paradigms as well.
In the 2020s, I still think Expect is TCL's killer app.
Interesting to read how Expect came so soon out of TCL (TCL: 1988, Expect: 1990) Expect remains an essential tool for dealing with interactive (but not TUI) terminal application, and in usage really fits its TCL roots perfectly. In contrast, I've found the Perl and Python ports of Expect to be somewhat awkward, not fitting those languages paradigms as well. In the 2020s, I still think Expect is TCL's killer app.
That's funny. Is there a gallery collecting these?
Interesting to read how Expect came so soon out of TCL (TCL: 1988, Expect: 1990) Expect remains an essential tool for dealing with interactive (but not TUI) terminal application, and in usage really fits its TCL roots perfectly. In contrast, I've found the Perl and Python ports of Expect to be somewhat awkward, not fitting those languages paradigms as well. In the 2020s, I still think Expect is TCL's killer app.
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 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…
At least that was how I used to see things, prior to getting familiar with Lisp and emacs. Now I find myself using all kinds of parentheses in every language so as to make order-of-operations more explicit at a quick glance. I even learned to count parentheses and almost enjoy it.
I think learning Python's complete-opposite approach of getting rid of brackets in most cases and using indentation-only also clarified my thinking on the matter. I find that this brings back the old problem of mismatched-bracket bug hunting, but worse because indentation levels can get shifted and then there's no amount of paren-matching that will help sort things out.
In essence, I think everyone should learn Python and Lisp, then see which philosophy they like better.
It's interesting because Sun had the same goals for Tcl as they did for Java (or vice-versa!): "evolve Tcl into a universal scripting language for the Internet", "allows untrusted scripts to be evaluated safely", "Tcl plugin, so that Tcl scripts can be evaluated in a Web browser".
Ousterhout spun Tcl out of Sun in late 1997, which feels like the timeline when Sun was turning to Java.
Is there insider history available anywhere on how and why that transition happened? I can certainly imagine that performance and expressivity were a concern.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
The article doesn't discuss how Sun turned away from Tcl and embraced Java instead (understandable since it focuses on Tcl). It's interesting because Sun had the same goals for Tcl as they did for Java (or vice-versa!): " evolve Tcl into a universal scripting language for the Internet ", " allows untrusted scripts to be evaluated safely ", " Tcl plugin, so that Tcl scripts can be evaluated in a Web browser ". Ousterh…
"At the same time, it became clear that Sun needed to focus its language evangelism around Java, which was released shortly after I arrived at Sun and had become hugely popular. Though Java and Tcl are very different languages, used for very different purposes, it would have been too hard for Sun to evangelize both of them simultaneously. I came to the conclusion that, overall, Java offered more benefits for Sun than Tcl did."
John was a great person to work for. He hired me despite the fact that in the interview with him I told him I'd never used Tcl and when he extolled its virtues he told me that it was "easy to learn and had powerful regular expressions" and I said "Don't those two things contradict each other?" He stopped talking and had a rather surprised expression on his face. I thought I'd blown it. Actually, I'd done the most important thing I could possibly have done: made him think something new.
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.
Fellow tcl lover here. When I left my tcl job I felt like I was approaching some next level of productivity that I've never quite found with other languages
On site with a customer, the question of creating a GUI interface came up. A few engineers left and, after a bit of time in another room, came back with a proposal already demo'd in tcl/tk.