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What I found most interesting about Tcl was its capacity for metaprogramming, due in large part to its quoting mechanism. Due to this, procedures in Tcl wind u
by groovy2shoes 11y ago
What I found most interesting about Tcl was its capacity for metaprogramming, due in large part to its quoting mechanism. Due to this, procedures in Tcl wind up somewhat akin to the fexpr construct found in some ancient Lisp dialects -- a construct which forms the theoretical basis for Kernel, albeit in a rigorous, formal manner called "vau calculus".
- vram22 11y ago>What I found most interesting about Tcl was its capacity for metaprogramming, due in large part to its quoting mechanism. Cool. Ah yes, memories coming back a bit now. (Had read both the Ousterhout (Tcl and Tk) and Libes (Expect) books years ago.) I remember that though the Libes book is about Expect, he does go into talking about Tcl a lot, including some of the advanced features you mention (though always or a lot, in the context of how they are used in Expect). I guess part of its (Tcl's) dynamic nature comes from the fact that everything in Tcl is a string (and the quoting and the ability to evaluate expressions), like everything in Lisp is a list (or an atom).