new forum -- homework help/chit chat/easy communication

[Paul Rubin]

"Fredrik Lundh" <fredrik at pythonware.com> writes:
> Tcl is an early example of a something that started as a "reusable
> command language" and turned into a "real programming language"
> along the way:

Yes, that's why tcl is such an awful language.  And it happens all the
time.  It's better to just start with a powerful language, e.g.,
Python, Guile, etc.  From the Guile blurb:
  http://www.gnu.org/software/guile/guile.html#whatisit


The true cost of doing it yourself
==================================

When you get to the point in your project where you need a scripting
language or a configuration file format and reader, the normal course
of things is to say ``I'll just do something clean and simple.'' This
is a good decision. Adding a full programming language is just a
distraction from your project. But simple languages don't seem capable
of staying simple. For example, early releases of PHP, a language for
generating web pages dynamically, enjoyed its minute memory footprint
and simplicity. However over time PHP has grown, with the latest
releases giving PHP an object system and other features that have
grown it to a much larger size. Compare Tcl from its 1988 origins with
the modern, sizable language. Broadly, the same progression has
occurred with Perl.
...
Guile has the fundamentals you need; you simply specialize it for your
application. It has arrays and lists; modules; objects; and
first-class functions. It has garbage collection --- which makes using
Guile especially simple. Using Guile, your application has a
full-featured scripting language right from the beginning, so you can
focus your manpower on the novel and attention-getting parts of your
application.