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From: gwlester@CAPTAINHOOK.CPU.COM (Gerald W. Lester)
Subject: Re: What language would you use?
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Date: Fri, 4 Nov 1994 22:27:26 GMT
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In article <39b7ha$j9v@zeno.NSCF.Org>, roberts@alpha (Jack C. Roberts) writes:
>The organization I work for develops educational software for high school
>age students.  The software is run in classrooms on a Unix server and X
>terminals.  The courseware is broken up into many hundreds of small "pages".
>These pages are written in a home grown language.  This language has a C
>like syntax and a toolkit based on the X Motif widgets. (no flames please :)
>
>Our current system has many problems, such as not being event driven, so
>I am advocating that we switch to a more mainstream language.  There are
>three languages I see as alternatives: tcl, python, scheme.  I would be
>very interested in hearing anyones opinion on this subject.  Below is a
>listing of issues we see as important.  It should be somewhat in
>order of importance.
>
>* Usable in a commercial environment

	Tcl's license terms allow use in the commerical environment.  It is
currently in use by several commercial concerns in their products, see 
the Tcl/Tk Commercial Uses FAQ.

>* User interface features (windowing)

	Excellent, Tk was written for tcl.  The other languages seem to have
decided the way to go is to "port" tk to their language.

>* Easy to learn and use

	This will depend on your background.  I found Tcl and Tk very easy to
learn and use.

>* Future of language

	Looks bright, but then who knows what will be in a couple of years.

>* Ability to move to PC/Mac platforms

	Sun is paying for the port to these platforms.  There are already
a couple of "demostration" implementations for the PC.

>* Extendability

	Excellent, this was a main goal of tcl.

>* Availability of other free tools in language

	Excellent, take a look at the archives.  Many of these tools are
supported by companies like AT&T, U. S. West, etc...

>* dynamically loadable extensions

	There is agreement on the syntax and need.  There is an extension to do
this for many platforms.  John had this on his list for a future baseline
feature.

>* speed

	Without the compiler (which is in the works) tcl is the loser.  With
the compiler who knows?

	However, it is fast enough to do a control system for major oil and gas
production platforms.  I think that for your application this should not be an
issue.

>* process size

	Varies a lot!  We have noticed that our swap space utilization has gone
done using tcl/tk vs writing in C.  Mostly becuase we only runone program, just
a lot of instances of it.  Hence only one text segment in the swap space.

>While I personally like Python the best, I see Tcl as being the winner
>based on the above criteria.  It seems to me that tcl would be easier for
>a non-programmer to use.  This is only a guess.  Does anyone have any
>experience they'd like to share? 

	I teach tcl/tk classes and we have used it on control systems. It seems
to depend greatly on a person's background and way that they conceptualize
things.  We have succesfully had EEs and MEs use it.  I've also taught CS
people who just could not seem to grasp what was going on.

>Please note: I am not trying to start a flame war based on which language
>is better.  I would just like to hear from those who have an opinion on
>which they think would be better for this particular task.
>
>I know little about scheme and will soon delve into the docs on it.  
>
>
>Thanks for reading.
>--
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>|      Jack Roberts                                                        |
>|      National Science Center Foundation      Usenet: roberts@nscf.org    |
>|      P.O. Box 15577                          Phone:  (706) 868-3621      |
>|      Augusta, GA 31919-1577                  Fax:    (706) 868-6088      |
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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