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I dunno why you got down voted, your point seems valid to me. Tcl thrived under John, after him it was ok when Hobbs was the de facto leader, it's sort of gon

I dunno why you got down voted, your point seems valid to me. Tcl thrived under John, after him it was ok when Hobbs was the de facto leader, it's sort of gone flat since he moved on. In my opinion.

igravious 9y ago
Thank you for saying so. It's probably because my comment was so terse and comes off as flippant. But I assure you it was not meant to be. I think it very much matters that TCL doesn't have a BDFL. I'm a bit ashamed to admit that I'd forgotten that Ousterhout was initial head honcho. I got to know Tcl via Expect and Tk, like many others I'm sure. Kind of like how many encounter Ruby through Rails and Perl through having committed some awful deed in a previous life. Tk and Expect were always pretty niche though.
- luckydude 9y ago
  Well cool, I upvoted your stuff. I agree that the BDFL is extremely valuable. Tcl is doing ok but it's not the same as when there was someone with a lot of vision setting a clear direction. The core team that is left believes in everything is a string too much for my taste, I think Ousterhout would have fixed more stuff by now.
ternaryoperator 9y ago
Perhaps because lots of languages have done well without a BDFL. Look at the top 10 languages in Tiobe or the RedMonk surveys, and the majority don't have BDFLs.
- igravious 9y ago
  Ok, let's do that: 1 1 Java 12.961% -6.05% 2 2 C 6.477% -4.83% 3 3 C++ 5.550% -0.25% 4 4 C# 4.195% -0.71% 5 5 Python 3.692% -0.71% 6 8 change Visual Basic .NET 2.569% +0.05% 7 6 change PHP 2.293% -0.88% 8 7 change JavaScript 2.098% -0.61% 9 9 Perl 1.995% -0.52% 10 12 change Ruby Of TCL's brethren Python, BDFL PHP, BDFL Perl, BDFL Ruby, BDFL The rest (even though you wouldn't compare them to TCL cuz they're not in the same niche) have/had huge corporate sponsors and/or are entrenched industry standards and have also had iconic/notable figureheads (Gosling, K&R, Stroustrup, Hejlsberg, Eich).
  - chromatic 9y ago
    Perl probably shouldn't be in that list. It's arguable that Larry has had any direct influence on it for at least ten years, perhaps 15.
- pjmlp 9y ago
  All of them had at least one company pushing them into the outside world.
sigzero 9y ago
It's "gone flat" because there are a lot of languages out there to choose from. Despite not having a BDFL, the TCT has steadily improved the language and added features. It's popularity is where it is and that probably isn't going to change. It's hard to be top dog now days.

I dunno why you got down voted, your point seems valid to me. Tcl thrived under John, after him it was ok when Hobbs was the de facto leader, it's sort of gone flat since he moved on. In my opinion.

igravious 9y ago

Thank you for saying so. It's probably because my comment was so terse and comes off as flippant. But I assure you it was not meant to be. I think it very much matters that TCL doesn't have a BDFL. I'm a bit ashamed to admit that I'd forgotten that Ousterhout was initial head honcho. I got to know Tcl via Expect and Tk, like many others I'm sure. Kind of like how many encounter Ruby through Rails and Perl through having committed some awful deed in a previous life. Tk and Expect were always pretty niche though.

luckydude 9y ago
Well cool, I upvoted your stuff. I agree that the BDFL is extremely valuable. Tcl is doing ok but it's not the same as when there was someone with a lot of vision setting a clear direction. The core team that is left believes in everything is a string too much for my taste, I think Ousterhout would have fixed more stuff by now.

ternaryoperator 9y ago

Perhaps because lots of languages have done well without a BDFL. Look at the top 10 languages in Tiobe or the RedMonk surveys, and the majority don't have BDFLs.

igravious 9y ago
Ok, let's do that: 1 1 Java 12.961% -6.05% 2 2 C 6.477% -4.83% 3 3 C++ 5.550% -0.25% 4 4 C# 4.195% -0.71% 5 5 Python 3.692% -0.71% 6 8 change Visual Basic .NET 2.569% +0.05% 7 6 change PHP 2.293% -0.88% 8 7 change JavaScript 2.098% -0.61% 9 9 Perl 1.995% -0.52% 10 12 change Ruby Of TCL's brethren Python, BDFL PHP, BDFL Perl, BDFL Ruby, BDFL The rest (even though you wouldn't compare them to TCL cuz they're not in the same niche) have/had huge corporate sponsors and/or are entrenched industry standards and have also had iconic/notable figureheads (Gosling, K&R, Stroustrup, Hejlsberg, Eich).
- chromatic 9y ago
  Perl probably shouldn't be in that list. It's arguable that Larry has had any direct influence on it for at least ten years, perhaps 15.
pjmlp 9y ago
All of them had at least one company pushing them into the outside world.

sigzero 9y ago

It's "gone flat" because there are a lot of languages out there to choose from. Despite not having a BDFL, the TCT has steadily improved the language and added features. It's popularity is where it is and that probably isn't going to change. It's hard to be top dog now days.