4 ms·

Tcl's got a pretty bad rap. But you know what? It probably deserves it. Anyway, well done, it's nice to see things ported to JS since JS has overtaken both math

Tcl's got a pretty bad rap. But you know what? It probably deserves it. Anyway, well done, it's nice to see things ported to JS since JS has overtaken both math and love as the universal language.

fuck_dang 11y ago
Async to the core in the 90s? Extremely expressive, rivaling Smalltalk? Small, understandable core with simple semantics? Teachable to newbies in hours rather than weeks? Yup, definitely deserves it. /s
- ktRolster 11y ago
  The extremely simple syntax is underrated. When you are writing code in a language, at some level you have to parse it in your mind, to make sure the compiler will accept it. When I first came across TCL after years of writing C++, I couldn't believe how much lighter the mental load was (I hadn't even noticed it until then).
  - fuck_dang 11y ago
    I don't even play around with TCL anymore, but I've been writing Ruby for a few years, and it's been a good time. The syntax isn't dense enough to block out the constructs, I guess. Anyways, I was looking at Dart a while back, and sat down in my editor and started working and quickly realized that I hold the entire program in my head but had to keep checking a cheat sheet for syntax. There's definitely something to be said for languages or tools that can alleviate that blockage. I guess it's the level of abstraction more than anything. TCL is really neat and being that the syntax IS the code, like Lisp, there's really no difference between how a solution works in your head and how it has to be written in the editor. So yeah. TCL's pretty dope.
ktRolster 11y ago
If you're going to insult a language, you should at least say WHY you don't like it.
- keepitsmall 11y ago
  Ousterhout designed Tcl as a general replacement for the kind of small crappy one-off interpreters he found himself adding to larger systems over and over again. At one point he decided that enough was enough and we was going to write an embeddable interpreter with the flavor of a simple shell like bash. Tcl is great for simple scripting and automated testing. It's also great when you want to represent small bits of data as code. Perspecta Presents[1], one of Ousterhout's first commercial ventures, used Tcl scripts as the file format for its presentations[2]. But Tcl was never intended for large programs. Ousterhout expected large programs to be written in another language with compilers, linkers, linters and other tools. Once a Tcl program gets past a certain size it becomes effectively unmaintable. Tracking down a variable name typo bug in a 100,000 line Tcl program is a hell I refuse to visit again. 1- http://wiki.tcl.tk/4191 http://wiki.tcl.tk/4191 2- http://www.rpi.edu/dept/rcs/packages/ppres/1.10/common/samples/eggs.ppr http://www.rpi.edu/dept/rcs/packages/ppres/1.10/common/sampl...
  - ArkyBeagle 11y ago
    Tcl requires a certain level of stylistic discipline and rigor. You are not wrong about tracking down a typo but that's a problem anywhere. That Perspecta file is not pretty to look at.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - icedchai 11y ago
    Exactly. Tcl was intended for embedding into other applications, not for writing fully blown applications itself.

Tcl's got a pretty bad rap. But you know what? It probably deserves it. Anyway, well done, it's nice to see things ported to JS since JS has overtaken both math and love as the universal language.

fuck_dang 11y ago

Async to the core in the 90s? Extremely expressive, rivaling Smalltalk? Small, understandable core with simple semantics? Teachable to newbies in hours rather than weeks? Yup, definitely deserves it. /s

ktRolster 11y ago
The extremely simple syntax is underrated. When you are writing code in a language, at some level you have to parse it in your mind, to make sure the compiler will accept it. When I first came across TCL after years of writing C++, I couldn't believe how much lighter the mental load was (I hadn't even noticed it until then).
- fuck_dang 11y ago
  I don't even play around with TCL anymore, but I've been writing Ruby for a few years, and it's been a good time. The syntax isn't dense enough to block out the constructs, I guess. Anyways, I was looking at Dart a while back, and sat down in my editor and started working and quickly realized that I hold the entire program in my head but had to keep checking a cheat sheet for syntax. There's definitely something to be said for languages or tools that can alleviate that blockage. I guess it's the level of abstraction more than anything. TCL is really neat and being that the syntax IS the code, like Lisp, there's really no difference between how a solution works in your head and how it has to be written in the editor. So yeah. TCL's pretty dope.

ktRolster 11y ago

If you're going to insult a language, you should at least say WHY you don't like it.

keepitsmall 11y ago
Ousterhout designed Tcl as a general replacement for the kind of small crappy one-off interpreters he found himself adding to larger systems over and over again. At one point he decided that enough was enough and we was going to write an embeddable interpreter with the flavor of a simple shell like bash. Tcl is great for simple scripting and automated testing. It's also great when you want to represent small bits of data as code. Perspecta Presents[1], one of Ousterhout's first commercial ventures, used Tcl scripts as the file format for its presentations[2]. But Tcl was never intended for large programs. Ousterhout expected large programs to be written in another language with compilers, linkers, linters and other tools. Once a Tcl program gets past a certain size it becomes effectively unmaintable. Tracking down a variable name typo bug in a 100,000 line Tcl program is a hell I refuse to visit again. 1- http://wiki.tcl.tk/4191 http://wiki.tcl.tk/4191 2- http://www.rpi.edu/dept/rcs/packages/ppres/1.10/common/samples/eggs.ppr http://www.rpi.edu/dept/rcs/packages/ppres/1.10/common/sampl...
- ArkyBeagle 11y ago
  Tcl requires a certain level of stylistic discipline and rigor. You are not wrong about tracking down a typo but that's a problem anywhere. That Perspecta file is not pretty to look at.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- icedchai 11y ago
  Exactly. Tcl was intended for embedding into other applications, not for writing fully blown applications itself.