[ale] Re: Tcl? (was: Re: [ale] Ale Inc.? (was RE: [ale] surviving sans work)

[Joseph A Knapka]

John Wells wrote:
> 
> > seem. Java and Perl are among the horriblest.
> >
> > My opinion, of course :-)
> >
> 
> I'm surprised you choose tcl over perl.  Tcl has got
> to be one of the ugliest languages I've had the
> displeasure of using.  I should know, I maintain a
> project consisting of over 300,000 lines.

That's way too big for a Tcl app. The tools for
programming in the large just aren't there, and all
the hacks to provide them (eg [incr Tcl]) leave me
cold.

>  It's great
> if you're doing simple string or list processing but
> try representing something advanced (i.e., data
> structures like linked lists, multidimensional arrays)
> and you begin to see it's underbelly.  From that point
> on, everything you do feels like a dirty hack.  In
> fact, there's no such thing as an array in
> tcl...everything's a hash table...

Tcl's point is to make simple scripting tasks over
existing data structures and APIs easy. And that it
does very well. Unfortunately, it does leave out the
features needed to do clean data abstraction,
which is why it's no longer among the languages I
use every day. Tcl used well is very easy to read
and understand, but when used for tasks that are
beyond its ken, it does get ugly. (Perl, however,
is ugly from the moment the rising sun touches its
face :)

> I'm sure I'm completely overlooking some of its
> benefits.  I know they have to be there to be some,
> and I'm sure the tight integration with tk provides a
> few.

Yes, Tk is really the biggest win for Tcl users.
Python makes using Tk substantially easier than
Tcl does, however. Though unfortunately, Python
actually uses an embedded Tcl interpreter to
interact with Tk, which is probably a significant
performance hit. People doing new code in Python
should probably use wxPython or something else
instead. Or <plug> Anygui <URL: http://anygui.org>,
the platform-neutral GUI API for Python: write
your UI and run it under Tk, wx, Win32, Qt, Gtk,
curses, and even a plain text console, unchanged.
It's still quite alpha-y, but someday it will rule
the world, bwahahaha </plug>.

>  I thought it interesting that RedHat used tcl/tk
> to develop Source Navigator.
> 
> Just my two cents...

Accepted and deposited in my Swiss bank account.

-- Joe
"I should like to close this book by sticking out any part of my neck
 which is not yet exposed, and making a few predictions about how the
 problem of quantum gravity will in the end be solved."
 --- Physicist Lee Smolin, "Three Roads to Quantum Gravity"

---
This message has been sent through the ALE general discussion list.
See http://www.ale.org/mailing-lists.shtml for more info. Problems should be 
sent to listmaster at ale dot org.