Re: [Webware-discuss] Velocity style version of TemplateServer is complete

[Ian B. <ia...@co...>]

Tavis Rudd <ta...@ca...> wrote:
> > I don't know what your implementation does exactly, but
> > if it does this sort of stuff that's encouraging lots of
> > bad voodoo, and a sort of functionality that can cripple
> > a language later on.
> I'd hardly call that bad voodoo, it's a standard unix 
> syntax that's been used for 30 years in many languages.  
> Remember, this language is intended to grow!  It's limited 
> by design.

Shell and Tcl both have serious problems that have kept them from
growing -- and not just growing out, but growing into different
implementations.

That the Tcl:
  set x y
  set $x 10
  puts y
  ==> 10

works like it does means that you can't do nearly as many
optimizations as you'd otherwise be able to do.  It means there's a
lot of code that can't be compiled into something faster, *or* more
abstract.  These are things that are fairly important in a template
language, even when it's meant to be small.

Shell has other problems, mostly the damn quoting, so that it doesn't
even get far enough for this problem to really hit.

And any kid that uses Logo will constantly be writing 
  MAKE :X 10
When they should write
  MAKE "X 10
Because the first one makes more sense to them, even though the second
one is correct.

There *is* a compelling simplicity to the idea, though.

  Ian