6 ms·

For TCL? But why?

by cutler 5y ago

For TCL? But why?

orthoxerox 5y ago
Because it's a likeable language. It has a small, neat syntax, equally clever semantics, so people do stuff in tcl for fun.
- shp0ngle 5y ago
  I used to fix some bugs in Tcl/Tk program a long time ago and it was the opposite of "fun". But frankly it was about 10 years ago (and the program in question was ancient even back then) and I don't really remember much, and if it was a fault of Tcl, Tk, or the actual program.
  - andrewshadura 5y ago
    Tcl has this interesting property. It's closer to Lisp in spirit and shell in syntax, but it also looks superficially like C, being actually nothing like it. People who try to program in it as if it were C usually fail and start hating it, whereas people who understand its essence start liking it. Unfortunately, people often encounter Tcl in situations where there's nobody to explain it to them, so they learn it the wrong way.
    - therealcamino 5y ago
      To paraphrase the moderator of comp.compilers from many years ago, everything is easier if you always keep in mind that TCL is a string substitution language.
edwinyzh 5y ago
IIRC, the author of SQLite uses TCL.
- bachmeier 5y ago
  He used to be a member of the core TCL development team.
rkeene2 5y ago
It was written by the author of SQLite, which is basically a Tcl extension that escaped into the wild. There's a talk by DRH at the Tcl 2019 Conference regarding Wapp [0]. [0] https://youtu.be/Aq4NI5NTUpU https://youtu.be/Aq4NI5NTUpU time code 1:49:34
blacksqr 5y ago
Yes, why on earth would someone use a tool designed to work directly with text to manage a text-based document definition protocol, when so many more complicated options are available?
fmakunbound 5y ago
Why not? Also, sometimes it seems “hacker” in Hacker News has been lost and replaced with corporate group think consensus, here.
- anoncake 5y ago
  "Growth Hacker News"
  - bdcravens 5y ago
    It's thankfully moved on from those days, but for a while it was "San Francisco and some tech News"
swiley 5y ago
It has one of the only truly cross platform UI toolkits.
- reflectiv 5y ago
  ok but like....thats for desktop application development... ...this is the web, a completely different and totally unrelated beast.
  - swiley 5y ago
    tk works on mobile as well.
    - reflectiv 5y ago
      mobile is much more akin to desktop development because the API's/etc are specific to each device type (android/iphone). The web is a different beast from that too.
  - tpoindex 5y ago
    I did write a Tcl web system back in the 2000's that was close to the Tk programming model, although not quite a one-to-one. Here is an example of side by side programs for Tk and Aejaks: https://wiki.tcl-lang.org/page/%C3%86jaks+compares+to+Tcl%2FTk https://wiki.tcl-lang.org/page/%C3%86jaks+compares+to+Tcl%2F... Some other screen shots: http://aejaks.sourceforge.net/Screen_Shots/index.html http://aejaks.sourceforge.net/Screen_Shots/index.html This was made with the Java based Echo toolkit, and the Jtcl interpreter (Tcl implemented in Java.)
mhd 5y ago
Tcl had a very short time in the fickle web dev spotlight, mostly due to Aolserver and Philip Greenspun. Something between CGI with Perl and whatever Java had to offer in the deep end of the 90s. At that time, a few lucky folks made way too much money using weird languages for the fledgling commercial internet. http://aolserver.github.io http://aolserver.github.io https://philip.greenspun.com/tcl/ https://philip.greenspun.com/tcl/
- doublerabbit 5y ago
  Just throwing this out there, NaviServer is the replacement to aolserver. It's in active development and pretty awesome to what it can do. OpenACS is a prime example https://openacs.org https://openacs.org https://wiki.tcl-lang.org/page/NaviServer https://wiki.tcl-lang.org/page/NaviServer

For TCL? But why?

by cutler 5y ago

For TCL? But why?

Because it's a likeable language. It has a small, neat syntax, equally clever semantics, so people do stuff in tcl for fun.

shp0ngle 5y ago
I used to fix some bugs in Tcl/Tk program a long time ago and it was the opposite of "fun". But frankly it was about 10 years ago (and the program in question was ancient even back then) and I don't really remember much, and if it was a fault of Tcl, Tk, or the actual program.
- andrewshadura 5y ago
  Tcl has this interesting property. It's closer to Lisp in spirit and shell in syntax, but it also looks superficially like C, being actually nothing like it. People who try to program in it as if it were C usually fail and start hating it, whereas people who understand its essence start liking it. Unfortunately, people often encounter Tcl in situations where there's nobody to explain it to them, so they learn it the wrong way.
  - therealcamino 5y ago
    To paraphrase the moderator of comp.compilers from many years ago, everything is easier if you always keep in mind that TCL is a string substitution language.

edwinyzh 5y ago

IIRC, the author of SQLite uses TCL.

bachmeier 5y ago
He used to be a member of the core TCL development team.

rkeene2 5y ago

It was written by the author of SQLite, which is basically a Tcl extension that escaped into the wild. There's a talk by DRH at the Tcl 2019 Conference regarding Wapp [0]. [0] https://youtu.be/Aq4NI5NTUpU https://youtu.be/Aq4NI5NTUpU time code 1:49:34

blacksqr 5y ago

Yes, why on earth would someone use a tool designed to work directly with text to manage a text-based document definition protocol, when so many more complicated options are available?

fmakunbound 5y ago

Why not? Also, sometimes it seems “hacker” in Hacker News has been lost and replaced with corporate group think consensus, here.

anoncake 5y ago
"Growth Hacker News"
- bdcravens 5y ago
  It's thankfully moved on from those days, but for a while it was "San Francisco and some tech News"

swiley 5y ago

It has one of the only truly cross platform UI toolkits.

reflectiv 5y ago
ok but like....thats for desktop application development... ...this is the web, a completely different and totally unrelated beast.
- swiley 5y ago
  tk works on mobile as well.
  - reflectiv 5y ago
    mobile is much more akin to desktop development because the API's/etc are specific to each device type (android/iphone). The web is a different beast from that too.
- tpoindex 5y ago
  I did write a Tcl web system back in the 2000's that was close to the Tk programming model, although not quite a one-to-one. Here is an example of side by side programs for Tk and Aejaks: https://wiki.tcl-lang.org/page/%C3%86jaks+compares+to+Tcl%2FTk https://wiki.tcl-lang.org/page/%C3%86jaks+compares+to+Tcl%2F... Some other screen shots: http://aejaks.sourceforge.net/Screen_Shots/index.html http://aejaks.sourceforge.net/Screen_Shots/index.html This was made with the Java based Echo toolkit, and the Jtcl interpreter (Tcl implemented in Java.)

mhd 5y ago

Tcl had a very short time in the fickle web dev spotlight, mostly due to Aolserver and Philip Greenspun. Something between CGI with Perl and whatever Java had to offer in the deep end of the 90s. At that time, a few lucky folks made way too much money using weird languages for the fledgling commercial internet. http://aolserver.github.io http://aolserver.github.io https://philip.greenspun.com/tcl/ https://philip.greenspun.com/tcl/

doublerabbit 5y ago
Just throwing this out there, NaviServer is the replacement to aolserver. It's in active development and pretty awesome to what it can do. OpenACS is a prime example https://openacs.org https://openacs.org https://wiki.tcl-lang.org/page/NaviServer https://wiki.tcl-lang.org/page/NaviServer