🚀 go-pugleaf

:-> In comp.lang.tcl, rockwell@nova.umd.edu (Raul Deluth Miller) writes:
:Tom Christiansen:
:. [Note the followup-to line, and adjust if necessary.]
:. ...  He would like this language to be used by any application
:. wanting embeddability or extensibility will employ.
:
:"any" is too strong a word.
:
:From what I read, RMS wants to make something available which is
:faster and more powerful than TCL.  He wants to use this "something
:better" in a number of significant projects.
:
:. Essentially, it will fail due to lack of consideration of these
:. issues:
:.  *  a developer's requirement to use whatever they feel like
:
:RMS is a developer, so are some other people that have expressed
:interest in this project.

Well, fine.  Giving us another potential interface is just fine.
Restricting our choices won't.  As I said, a reasonable thing for the FSF
to do might be to look toward unifying the C API to tk with an eye towards
efficiency and portability.  It's currently used in subtly different ways
by tcl, perl, python, scheme, and even prolog.  Guido and Malcolm were in
heavy conference last week, so they'll probably do it anyway without the
FSF's blessing.  There's also the "danger" that what they'll do won't be
copylefted, as both perl and python are available under alternative
licencing restrictions to facilitate embedded use in commerical products,
something at which they've been quite successful.

At the risk of repeating myself, I'll state that in this community, only 
technical criteria matter.  Politics do not drive the technical, but vice
versa.  To see it as otherwise is to fight a losing battle.  Until gnu
script appears, it's vaporware of a purely political nature, and just so
much hype and hormones.  Once it does, it has the potential of being a
technical wonder and filling some gaping niche (which most of us can't
see), at which point it will be judged on its technical merits.  

--tom
-- 
Tom Christiansen      Perl Consultant, Gamer, Hiker      tchrist@mox.perl.com
- Real programmers like vending machine popcorn.  Coders pop it in the
  microwave oven.  Real programmers use the heat from the CPU.  They can tell
  which jobs are running from the rate of popping.