From: Peter da Silva
Subject: Yet Another lisp-like extension language... Re: What other experimental languages connect to a windowing system? (was: Why is TCL successful ?)
Date:
Message-ID: <id.R6UB1.LQ8@nmti.com>
In article <··········@sophia.inria.fr>,
Colas Nahaboo <·····@crios.inria.fr> wrote:
> PS: the lessons gained with wool led me to make Wool2 which is the heart
> of Bull (a 40 000 person computer vendor) biggest software
> product (millions of lines of code). So there *ARE* real applications using
> lisp dialects. But because of US irrational lisp-fear one now has to never
> admit that the software you sell has parentheses inside :-)
Which is silly, since 90% of Tcl syntax is taken from Lisp, except it uses
{} instead of (). The semantics are quite different, though apart from one
feature Lisp's semantics are better. That one feature? String handling.
The ability to embed variables in unformatted strings is tremendously
popular. Look at the lengths peope to go through to force code into the
"$this $that" style instead of [list $this $that]. The format command is
also a great tool.
The actual commands in Tcl are slightly more regular than in most lisps:
quoting conventions are more regular, and the naming is less haphazard, but
that's mostly a "new broom" phenomenon. Lisp has a lot of baggage here.
The best extension language I ever used was, like Tcl, a cross between Lisp
and a string-oriented shell. It was closer to Lisp though... but abandoned
all the old Lisp command name spam. It was the original extension language
for Brief. I understand it's been replaced by something C-style. Sigh... C
is not a good design for an interactive interpreted language, 'cos it's got
no hooks for operating on code.
--
Peter da Silva `-_-'
Network Management Technology Incorporated 'U`
1601 Industrial Blvd. Sugar Land, TX 77478 USA
+1 713 274 5180 "Hast Du heute schon Deinen Wolf umarmt?"
From: Colas Nahaboo
Subject: Re: Yet Another lisp-like extension language... Re: What other experimental languages connect to a windowing system? (was: Why is TCL successful ?)
Date:
Message-ID: <31tq0n$omq@sophia.inria.fr>
In article <············@nmti.com>, ·····@nmti.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
|> Which is silly, since 90% of Tcl syntax is taken from Lisp, except it uses
|> {} instead of (). The semantics are quite different, though apart from one
|> feature Lisp's semantics are better. That one feature? String handling.
|>
|> The ability to embed variables in unformatted strings is tremendously
|> popular. Look at the lengths peope to go through to force code into the
|> "$this $that" style instead of [list $this $that]. The format command is
|> also a great tool.
I agree but I think it is for another reason. It seems to me that what
disturbs mostly lisp beginners is the quoting/eval rule, I mean, it seems
that most users find more natural to think that foo is "foo" and that you
have to go an extra step to get its contents, as in $foo -> "bar", and in
lisp they never know when to quote things.
maybe it is because with script you just do "immediate programming" just
stuffing data quickly, and dont want to take the time to put them nicely
into boxes (variables)....
--
Colas Nahaboo, Koala (Bull Research)
Mosaic Info: <A HREF="http://zenon.inria.fr:8003/koala/colas.html"></A>
From: Stephen J Bevan
Subject: Re: Yet Another lisp-like extension language... Re: What other experimental languages connect to a windowing system? (was: Why is TCL successful ?)
Date:
Message-ID: <BEVAN.94Aug9083458@lemur.cs.man.ac.uk>
[ Followup's directed to comp.lang.misc - bevan ]
In article <··········@sophia.inria.fr> ·····@crios.inria.fr (Colas Nahaboo) writes:
I agree but I think it is for another reason. It seems to me that what
disturbs mostly lisp beginners is the quoting/eval rule,
Which I find puzzling since I thought the quoting rule was
semantically same as that of English.
I mean, it seems that most users find more natural to think that
foo is "foo" ...
Isn't that -contrary- to the method of quoting used in English?