4 ms·
In the past it was fairly common to write configuration files in TCL and just running the script to parse them. This was generally considered to be a mistake.
by jandrese 5y ago
In the past it was fairly common to write configuration files in TCL and just running the script to parse them.
This was generally considered to be a mistake. It opens up a huge threat surface for your program and few people ended up using the more advanced capabilities it created. If your config format supports simple globbing that covers the 95% use case for otherwise needing a turing compete language for your configuration files.
- AaronFriel 5y agoI think that speaks to having that flexibility when needed. The other 5% of use cases are significant too.
- jandrese 5y agoThe other 5% is generally solved by people who write scripts to generate the config files. It's not like they're up a creek.
- kaba0 5y agoThat’s why I think Dhall is really interesting, it being purposefully not Turing-complete, yet still very flexible.
- blacksqr 5y ago> This was generally considered to be a mistake. Pity. Tcl allows you to create safe interpreters within which you can disable any commands you want in order to have a trustworthy environment for running configuration scripts. Tcl itself uses them to build its internal list of available package modules.