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> "let's use Javascript!" I don't think it's the same use case. Tcl is really good as a CLI language, like Python. NodeJS is not very good when it comes to t
by camus2 9y ago
> "let's use Javascript!"
I don't think it's the same use case. Tcl is really good as a CLI language, like Python.
NodeJS is not very good when it comes to test stuff in the CLI quickly due to its async API. Even when there are synchronous versions, most libraries are async so wrapping everything in promises is a bit of a pain.
IMHO Tcl really lost to Python, not JS. Python is an excellent way to test ideas quickly on the CLI.
I do a lot of web-scrapping and data transformations and to be able just to open a CLI, call a lib and test things out in 5 minutes for a PoC is just RAD.
- TheAceOfHearts 9y agoNow that async functions are available in node, I'd say you can write some very nice async code with minimal efforts. Before that, many people were using generators to write coroutines (e.g. with the co module), which effectively achieved the same result. Not saying you should change languages though, especially if you're happy with your existing toolset! But if you feel up to it, you might be surprised upon giving it a try. I've written a few one-off scrappers without any complaints. It also works well for simple cross-platform scripts. I don't recall the developer experience when installing python on windows, so maybe it's just as good. With node you only have to download and install the official release, and everything is good to go. Even when some package has native code, it generally "just works".
- Spooky23 9y agoIn my experience, Tcl was the go-to for DSLs and application integration in the 90s. Perl was the best standalone interpreter. Python was a killer of both... it wasn't as hostile and freaky as Tcl and arcane as Perl.