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Poor Yorick 2015-01-02 08:19:41 -07:00
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@ -13,15 +13,43 @@ programming language. It can also be used as a portable C library, even in
cases where no scripting capability is needed, as it provides data structures
such as dynamic strings, lists, and hash tables. The C library also provides
portable functionality for loading dynamic libraries, string formatting and
code conversion, filesystem operations, network operations, and more.
code conversion, filesystem operations, network operations, and more.
Various features of Tcl stand out:
* Convenient cross-platform networking API
* Fully virtualized filesystem
* Stackable I/O channels
* Asynchronous to the core
* Full coroutines
* A threading model recognized as robust and easy to use
If Lisp is a list processor, then Tcl is a string processor. All values are
strings. A list is a string format. A procedure definition is a string
format. To achieve performance, Tcl internally caches structured
representations of these values. The list commands, for example, operate on
the internal cached representation, and Tcl takes care of updating the string
representation if it is ever actually needed in the script. The copy-on-write
design of Tcl allows script authors can pass around large data values without
actually incurring additional memory overhead. Procedures are automatically
byte-compiled unless they use the more dynamic commands such as "uplevel",
"upvar", and "trace".
Tcl is a pleasure to program in. It will appeal to hacker types who find Lisp,
Forth, or Smalltalk interesting, as well as to engineers and scientists who
just want to get down to business with a tool that bends to their will. Its
discipline of exposing all programmatic functionality as commands, including
things like loops and mathematical operations that are usually baked into the
syntax of other languages, allows it to fade into the background of whatever
domain-specific functionality a project needs. It's syntax, which is even
lighter that that of Lisp, just gets out of the way.
Tcl is a pleasure to program in. Its discipline of exposing all programmatic
functionality as commands, including things like loops and mathematical
operations that are usually baked into the syntax of other languages, allows it
to fade into the background of whatever domain-specific functionality a project
needs. Its design of exposing all values as strings, while internally caching
a structured representation, bridges the world of scripting and systems
programming in the best way. Even Lisp is more syntactically heavy than Tcl.