Re: Why you should not use Tcl

Glenn Vanderburg (glv@utdallas.edu)
7 Oct 1994 13:39:47 GMT

Tim Pierce writes:
>
> It seems to me that rms's main point was, as Glenn quotes:
>
> RMS> Extensions are often large, complex programs in their own right, and
> RMS> the people who write them deserve the same facilities that other
> RMS> programmers rely on.

No. RMS' main point was that people should not use Tcl. The sentence
quoted here was only a supporting argument, and I don't think that it
really supports his point unless you accept all of his assumptions,
and unless you look at core Tcl in isolation.

> That's not a technology issue but a people issue. He
> observes, furthermore, that people *do* already use Tcl and
> other extension languages for large and intricate
> applications in their own right. I'm not sure how you
> intend to refute that -- it seems to me to be a truism.

I don't intend to refute that. It is true (although not a truism).

I do question RMS' implicit assertion that the Emacs model of an
extensible application is the only one that can work well.

I also reject the assumption that because some people have
difficulties with a language, it is a bad language.

---glv