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Tänzer – An industrial web server framework for Tcl

tanzer.io

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Re: Tänzer – An industrial web server framework for Tcl

#61

Post by xantronix »

holtbp wrote: post #60

Tänzer is 'dancer' in German, btw. Looks like it was inspired by Perl's Dancer.

tänzer also listens to loads more industrial music than Perl's Dancer, but will often be caught listening to Björk when she's hiding.

One thing I'm particularly keen on, with tänzer, is making it possible to easily swap in any ol' static file filtering mechanism by way of ::tanzer::file::handler callbacks. Without even necessarily having to write one's own request handler, one can simply filter the files before serving without any heavy lifting. A few examples would be transparent static asset minification, and template processing. Speaking of which, one of my next priorities is finishing up code and docs for teaspoon (whose file extension is .tsp; HA! HA!) so we can have a demonstrably straightforward set of swappable, pluggable web components in our little Tcl world.

http://tanzer.io/git/teaspoon.git

Re: Tänzer – An industrial web server framework for Tcl

#62

Post by xantronix »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #32

Well now I feel old. I remember writing a web app in Tcl way back in 2000 or so right after I graduated. From what I recall, AOLServer was not as fun to program as this appears to be. http://aolserver.github.io/ TCL was actually a pretty OK language. I do remember that aolserver was a major improvement over CGI scripts.

Don't feel old! Tcl is only two years younger than me and three years older than Python, and hardly anyone considers Python a relic. One day I shall adequately understand why it is that Tcl fell out of favor. The core language was never bad nor yucky, but things did improve quite a bit when Tcl 8.0 came along, with internal typed representations and whatnot. However, I finally decided this was the year I "put up or shut up" and prove to myself an interesting theorem that language adoption is mostly marketing. Here's to hoping the quirky little devil known as Tcl shall usher in a newfound hipster resurgence of joyful web software!

Re: Tänzer – An industrial web server framework for Tcl

#63

Post by a8da6b0c91d »

forkandwait wrote: post #44
mst wrote: post #40

Relaying for xan: Part of my reason for being so hellbent upon proliferating tänzer is to improve the state of affairs for Tcl's perception by the wider community. It's a beautiful language, and a well-considered ecosystem. It never really ceased being that as it aged ever so gracefully, so I figure I shall become some larger-than-life PARTY HARD AND LISTEN TO BEAUTIFUL MUSIC! figurehead to spread some cheer and joy…

Tcl is my favorite scripting language for these five reasons: + It combines macro ish text substitution with really, really, really good scoping and loop constructs. + A built in event handler is awesome. + Tk widgets look just fine for the one off GUI that routinizes a single repetitive task. + (Surprisingly) I almost never need float math in a script, one of the things it's not good at. + Tcl doesn't try to provide…

> good scoping

Wait, you like the upvar stuff?

Re: Tänzer – An industrial web server framework for Tcl

#64

Post by hardwaresofton »

darka wrote: post #4

How prevalent is Tcl usage in the real world? You don't hear much about it, are there any new startups adopting it? Or is it only used in legacy projects at large companies?

It is all over the place in Integrated Circuit (IC) design. So companies like ARM, Intel, Synopsys, Cadence, all use it.

It was made to tie together IC tools after all (at Stanford, if I remember correctly).

Re: Tänzer – An industrial web server framework for Tcl

#65

Post by forkandwait »

a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #63
forkandwait wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tcl is my favorite scripting language for these five reasons: + It combines macro ish text substitution with really, really, really good scoping and loop constructs. + A built in event handler is awesome. + Tk widgets look just fine for the one off GUI that routinizes a single repetitive task. + (Surprisingly) I almost never need float math in a script, one of the things it's not good at. + Tcl doesn't try to provide…

> good scoping Wait, you like the upvar stuff?

Yes, because you rarely need upvar, but when you do, only tcl has it.

Also, i know of no other language with macro like substitution along with real local variables.

Re: Tänzer – An industrial web server framework for Tcl

#66

Post by xantronix »

a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #63
forkandwait wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tcl is my favorite scripting language for these five reasons: + It combines macro ish text substitution with really, really, really good scoping and loop constructs. + A built in event handler is awesome. + Tk widgets look just fine for the one off GUI that routinizes a single repetitive task. + (Surprisingly) I almost never need float math in a script, one of the things it's not good at. + Tcl doesn't try to provide…

> good scoping Wait, you like the upvar stuff?

It's astounding the crap [upvar] lets you get away with, ESPECIALLY making your own loop constructs. I'd be boned without it for doing request parsing without the ability to share a string buffer by name, for instance.

Re: Tänzer – An industrial web server framework for Tcl

#68

Post by helmut_hed »

xantronix wrote: post #56
kingmanaz wrote: post #53

Tcl is pragmatic. I still use it for one-off projects with simple GUIs via Tk. I get grief from co-workers for the language, but my projects are typically done and correctly functioning in a fraction of the time it takes our Java and C# devs to even prototype a utility. Below is a walkthrough of Tk which compares identical implementations of examples in Pearl, Ruby, Python, and Tcl. See if you can spot which of the s…

Her part =) The problem with humble and beautiful people and things is that, being of such a disposition, one is often not wont to market and self-promote, something I find to be quite endemic of the ever decreasing Tcl community. However, since I've decided to crush my Impostor Syndrome with a pointy heel, I've determined that there's no reason to be shy any longer. Nothing good comes of faulty and detrimental meekn…

I tried to find you on Twitter, and it corrected my search to "mantronix". No joke. Anyway thanks for sharing your code!

Re: Tänzer – An industrial web server framework for Tcl

#69

Post by davidw »

pjmlp wrote: post #45
yummyfajitas wrote: post #32

Well now I feel old. I remember writing a web app in Tcl way back in 2000 or so right after I graduated. From what I recall, AOLServer was not as fun to program as this appears to be. http://aolserver.github.io/ TCL was actually a pretty OK language. I do remember that aolserver was a major improvement over CGI scripts.

I joined a Portuguese startup in 1999 that had an in-house Apache module for TCL, an application server similar to AOLServer in design. With an abstraction layer similar in capabilities to what people know Rails for. With lots of C plugins as well. Being part of the core developers meant I was a regular reader on tcl/tk forums, eagerly looking for the upcoming TIPs, following ActiveState work in the community and so…

> 2 - if you ever plan to scale, use a compiled language for the get go instead (JIT/AOT)

Like Facebook?

I don't think that's good advice, for several reasons:

* Everyone dreams about scaling. For most, it's just not a pertinent reality. It's easy to prematurely optimize.

* Scripting languages will let you iterate faster, and find some kind of product-market fit. Think about Twitter: I love Rails, but ... no, Rails is not a good fit for what Twitter is. And yet they managed to right the ship and move on to more appropriate systems. If you've got a viable business, you can find the money to improve.

Re: Tänzer – An industrial web server framework for Tcl

#70

Post by davidw »

hardwaresofton wrote: post #64
darka wrote: post #4

How prevalent is Tcl usage in the real world? You don't hear much about it, are there any new startups adopting it? Or is it only used in legacy projects at large companies?

It is all over the place in Integrated Circuit (IC) design. So companies like ARM, Intel, Synopsys, Cadence, all use it. It was made to tie together IC tools after all (at Stanford, if I remember correctly).

From what I've heard, most of those tools are not really the best of poster-boys for Tcl in that they're kind of old and crufty and probably not a lot of fun to work with.
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