Re: [Tcl9-cloverfield] Cloverfield usability

[Andy G. <unu...@ai...>]

On Thu, 29 May 2008 11:33:10 +0200, Frédéric Bonnet wrote
> http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001119.html

Nice article, thanks.  It does answer my questions.

I wasn't aware of this aspect of PHP because when I last used it (many years
ago) I had limited myself to a small subset of its *cough* functionality.  I
pretended it was a simple language, and I used it to do simple things. :^)

That's why I recently was able to tell myself with a straight face that I had
reimplemented PHP in Tcl:

http://andy.junkdrome.org/growth/data/site.tcl

Look at [emit_template].

It gets used on files like this:

http://andy.junkdrome.org/growth/data/template

This file escapes to Tcl mode by $varsub, [cmdsub], \backsub, and lines
beginning with %percent signs.

> "PHP Sucks, But It Doesn't Matter"

Interesting concept.  Apparently momentum/"thrust" can make up for sucky
design.  Pigs do fly, if you have catapults.  Or jet packs.  (BACON!)

This certainly isn't a desirable goal to have, though!  But it does show that
when languages (and other such systems, e.g. libraries, operating systems,
methodologies, development tools) get compared, their design quality doesn't
contribute much to their rank.  What's important is the momentum the world has
bestowed upon them.

The upshot is that no matter how many language comparisons show that Visual
Basic is superior to Tcl, you can't conclude that Visual Basic is a better
*language* than Tcl, only that it's more widely used by people or projects who
directly or indirectly contributed to the comparison(s).

I daresay that an elegant language will have a harder time being accepted by
the masses because it's harder to (or the designers are loathe to) shove in
large amounts of random functionality for every little thing.  Apparently the
average workaday programmer just wants a language with a very large toolbox. 
It's like preferring to have a million wrenches over having a single
adjustable wrench.  I can't understand this preference, but there's a very
long list of things on which I can't understand my fellow man, so I'll leave
it alone.

-- 
Andy Goth | <unu...@ai...> | http://andy.junkdrome.org/