On 12 Jan, Greg A. Woods wrote:
> [ On Wednesday, January 12, 2000 at 09:23:08 (-0500), Steven Hirsch wrote: ]
> > Subject: Re: choice of extension languages for a heterogeneous client/server
>version control system
> >
> > I'll chime in against Tcl. Absolutely wretched syntax, inconsistant and
> > confusing semantics. It reminds me of nothing so much as a Unix
> > Bourne/Korn shell on steroids.
> >
> > Why not Perl?
>
> Well, perl *is* sh+awk+sed on major steroids, *and* it has a most ugly
> syntax too.... Need I say more? :-)
I certainly agree with this.
> (I think it may also be a bit too big, complex, and clumsy to use as an
> extension language in this case, though that's clearly debatable.)
Debatable.
> Indeed if the latter argument is valid then Python is also an
> inappropriate choice.
>
> If scheme isn't viable (and I think it is) then I'd pick something
> equally clean, such as a *slightly* enhanced "awk", or perhaps the
> language implemented by "libexpr" as described in "Practical Reusable
> UNIX Software" (B. Krishnamurthy, AT&T Bell Labs).
Please have a look at Ici. It's fast, clean, small, elegant, and
powerful. Its major lack is a GUI part (like Tk for Tcl). This
shouldn't be an issue for the intended purpose here, I think.
Oh, I should add that it was designed to be embeddable as a scripting
and extension language, portable, and a sh+awk+sed replacement. It's
very mature, and close to bug free. (I guess we find and fix about 1
or 2 bugs a year.)
See it at: http://www.zeta.org.au/~atrn/ici/
The license is very free - it's been put in the public domain. It's
very C-like in syntax but with powerful data types built in, auto
memory allocation and freeing, powerful fast regexps. It's used heaps
in-house where I work. People who've used it tend to quickly fall in
love with it.
Runs on Unix, Windows, and Mac too, I believe.
luke
