From: ···@sef-pmax.slisp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Why is TCL successful ?
Date: 
Message-ID: <3283ml$7ct@cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu>
    From: ····@deshaw.com (Matthew Newman)

    I am a little bemused reading all this discussion, Tcl syntax is simple.
    All you need to know is "" vs {} quoting including \ quoting.
    and $ vs [] substitution...

I find TCL syntax confusing and clumsy, in the way that most Unix shells
are confusing and clumsy.  I don't have time to explain what I mean by that
in detail, so feel free to consider it a cheap shot, but I've heard others
express the same opinion.  I find Lisp -- even common Lisp -- much more
elegant.  OK, maybe I've been living in Lisp too long to see all its flaws.
    
    The debates that go on on Usenet seem to me to often be akin to the
    political and cutural battles that have plauged human civilisation ever
    since it begun, namely
    
    	We expend enormous energy *stressing* we our views are
    	different to others, rather than building on the commonality
    	that we all share.
    
    For instance look at modern computing, as defined in popular use, we
    are decades behind where we might have been because we fight amongst
    ourselves, either between companies for spurious financial or power
    gain, but also amongst the research community, isn't it time we matured
    beyond this stage in our evolution, think not of differences, but of
    what we share.
    
Bullfeathers!  We are decades *ahead* of where we might have been because
we fight amongst ourselves.  A vigorous debate is the best way to make
progress.  Agreeing to settle on a comfortable, shared mediocrity is death
to any field.

I will admit that usenet debates are often a waste of time -- all it takes
is a few people being noisily uninformed to drag things down, especially if
they cross post to newsgroups they don't read.  (BTW, I am sending this
only to comp.lang.lisp, which I read.)

-- Scott

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