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comp.lang.tcl |
Scene: A run down shop at the end of a long, mostly deserted street. A Inside, a number of generally older men shuffle around quietly, mumbling All of a sudden, there is a loud noise, and a young, bright-eyed skinny Newbie: Hi! I'm in computer science at the local university. My Jeff sighs, and picks up a desk calendar from the shelf behind him. He Larry Virden walks up from the back of the shop towards the young Larry V.: I couldn't help overhearing your concerns. Don't you worry, Newbie: But what if nearly everyone stops using it? Larry V.: As long as there's one programmer left in the world still Richard Suchenwirth pops his head briefly through a window. Richard S.: You should see this cool AS/400 simulator I wrote in Tcl; Newbie: But what about web applications? That's really important today, Dave Welton, who's been working at a desk nearby, looks up. Around him Dave: He does have a point. Tcl is a pretty nice language for web An angry voice from the back screams at Dave: You idiot! What do you On cue, two groups of hackers in the back line up on either side of the Jeff: Besides, if we had a tool like Rails it would run a heck of a lot Richard S. (popping his head in again): Me too! Jean-Claude Wippler, who has just finished an enormous plate of sushi, Jean-Claude: Besides, Tcl gives you all kinds of novel choices for Jeff: (groans) Newbie: That's interesting. I'd heard that SQLite even had a Tcl Richard Hipp, who's been frantically bouncing around the room the entire Richard H.: Well gosh darn, nobody will believe me when I tell them that Jean-Claude: Hey, I just got Metakit working on this vacuum tube I Richard S.: Hey, last weekend I used Tcl to turn a vacuum tube into a Newbie: Wow, there certainly do seem to be a lot of neat things that Jeff: You'd be surprised how many companies use Tcl internally, Someone else pipes up: Besides, a lot of us just start our own Dave: But it would help a bit if a few more people were doing some more Richard S.: No need, everything is on the wiki. What more do you want? Larry V.: Exactly, it's fine, what difference does it make? And it Richard S.: Did I mention the weekend when I rewrote Lynx in Tcl but Newbie: That's pretty cool! So what are you guys working on now? Jeff: Well, we've got some pretty cool stuff - an improved, modern user Donal (from a small cellar in the basement, where he's been locked): Joe English is sitting in another corner, chipping away and polishing a Joe: You know, this is all great and such, but if anyone else wanted to Jeff: So yeah, the next release should be any day now. Larry McVoy pops down the chute where the front door should be, carrying Newbie: Hey, what's with the stick? Larry M.: I need it to go around poking all those free software weenies Everyone: No, thank god. Larry M.: By the way, I hate to keep mentioning it, but if you guys Gerald Lester offers Larry a bottle of hot sauce, and turns on the neon Gerald: You know Larry, I think laundry chutes are kinda nice. A large box comes flying down the laundry chute and lands with a thud. Newbie: Wow, that's a pretty big box? What's in that? Jeff: Just today's batch of "thank you" cards, from all the people who Newbie: I think I get it now. You know, I've learned something today. Larry M.: Yeah, like that's going to happen. Fade out. Scene: a nice office, far far away. John Ousterhout is sitting in front John: See, I knew all along the only way we'd make money from Tcl is by
cracked and weather-beaten sign, obviously from the mid-90's, hangs over
a large boarded up window. It reads "Tcl and Tk Programming House and
Support Group". The word "Tk" has been recently updated on the sign,
and now is made up of a set of small shiny tiles of different colors, at
stark contrast to the rest of the sign.
to themselves. Jeff Hobbs stands behind the counter near the front,
slowly sipping from a stained coffee mug full of fine whisky. A small,
half-empty bookshelf of dust-covered books is on the wall behind him.
college student tumbles down what looks like an oversized laundry chute,
conspicuously located where most stores would have a door, and lands in
the shop. He gets up, looks around and approaches Jeff at the counter,
who looks up.
grandfather told me that I should learn Tcl and Tk because it'll allow
me to do all kinds of cool stuff. But when I mention that to my friends
at school, they all laugh at me and tell me that Tcl is totally obsolete
and for losers. Now I'm worried! Is Tcl dying out?
looks down, quietly says "right on time", and puts a big check mark next
to a handwritten note on the current day. He then makes another entry
on the calendar three months later.
programmer.
Tcl and Tk are fully open source, so how can they die? There are copies
of it everywhere, so it will last forever! It's indestructible!
working with it, Tcl will live on! And think of all the people running
Eggdrop - Tcl is thriving!
here, it runs on my phone. All it took was one weekend!
and I don't hear much about Tcl.
are several Ruby and Rails books, a large stack of money from his
clients, and a bunch of neat demos of Hecl that he's been having fun
working on.
applications, especially embedded things and where you're deploying to
customers, but it does seem to have fallen behind for a lot of
mainstream uses. Tools like Rails do make a lot of common things pretty
easy.
know about web programming and Tcl anyway? Haven't you heard of the Tcl
Apache project? And there are other web servers you know!
shop and face each other. One group repeatedly yells "AOLserver!" at
the other, who repeatedly respond with "tclhttpd!".
faster than in Ruby, and I18N would work right. Sure, we don't have
something like Rails, but it's just a small matter of programming, I'm
sure I could put it together in a weekend.
wanders over.
databases for your web application or anything else. And look here,
I've just rewritten Metakit again using Simula-67. Makes the Tcl
binding much cleaner and more straightforward, and that'll certainly be
easier to get compiled than C++.
binding, and that's the coolest thing I've ever seen.
time, steers himself in that direction.
I really love Tcl, and that SQLite was really
made for Tcl. But they never listen to me, they're just too busy
shoving money in my face to do work for them. Boy
it's tough.
found. This time I know I've got it!
space shuttle. How cool is that?
people are doing with Tcl. It must be really useful. I don't see it on
job postings a lot though. What kind of jobs do you guys get?
especially for things like testing and internal tool development. But I
can't tell you about any of them or I'd be shot.
companies. It's not like we could get hired anywhere since we're not up
on all the latest buzzwords. Hey, had you heard of this brand new
language that's just come out called Java?
marketing. That web site really needs some work.
works with Lynx!
made it 3D?
What's next for Tcl?
interface and a brand new object system. I think it's the 100th object
system done in Tcl; how many languages can say that? So as soon as
Donal finishes, we'll be ready to release.
Help! Let me out of here!
gigantic pile of ceramic tiles.
help out, that'd be okay!
a long pointy stick.
in the eye. Suckers. You should have seen Stallman after I got him
last week. It was hilarious! He hasn't been around here again lately
has he?
would just put a front door on this shop like people are used to instead
of the stupid laundry chute that people have to use to get in, you might
get a few more people coming through.
sign he wears on his ballcap saying "ask me about the oil platform...
please!"
are happily using Tcl to get their job done, and not worrying about
whether it's dying or not, or caring how it compares with Ruby or Python
or Java or whatever. They seem to think that it's nice having a choice
of tools out there, and if Tcl works for them, they're happy.
Sure, there are lots of different tools out there, and their popularity
goes up and down. Some get a lot of attention for particular things.
Others may not be as flashy but get the job done, and may be better for
a different set of problems. If we spent less time worrying about who
was better and who sucked, and actually learned from each other, we'd
make life better for a lot of people. It's not so important to prove
you're right and the other guy is wrong. Maybe we could all work
together and make it easier for everyone to do their jobs, rather than
wasting time arguing with each other.
of a row of video screens showing images from hidden cameras all around
the shop. A group of TV executives is watching closely.
getting all these technical guys in one spot and making a reality TV
series out of it!