Manfred Bartz <MBartz_at_promail.com> writes:
> tma_at_nettest.dk writes:
>
> > Has anybody been thinking about introducing something like TCL in
> > fvwm. To me it looks like most current fvwm commands can be translated
> > directly to TCL commands. This would automatically add
>
> <stuff deleted>
>
> > What do you think? Will it work? Anybody out there want to help?
>
> I don't want to discourage you and I don't want to start a flame war
> either.
>
> However, my experience has been that tcl/tk is excellent for small
> appletts but not for medium or large applications. All the larger
> tcl/tk based apps that I know of (tkdesk, tkinfo, and a few I can't
> remember now) are too buggy to rely on. That is surely due to the
> absence of data-types and type checking in the language.
I don't want to write major pieces of TCL here. I just want a better
fvwm configuration language with all the modern programming constructs
(if, while, for, procedures, etc) and some easier concepts for the
more obscure features of the current configuration languages,
especially the functions (this is not a flame on the origial
developer, as I believe the idear is alright for small functions, but
very difficult for larger functions.).
Also I miss maving acces to the current state of fvwm from the
configuration file itself. That would be easy to add within a TCL
framework.
And yes I do know that many believe the TCL programming paradigm to be
ugly, but given the goal of being backward compatible with the current
configuration files, I see no other usable languages. Of cause we
could invent one ourselves, but that is exactly what I want to
prevent...
>
> There is a fvwm derived project (scwm) that uses scheme (lisp?) as a
> scripting language.
Maybe I should look into that...
>
> My suggestion would be to look at ``slang'', which I believe is some
> sort of C-interpreter. I don't know how good it is, but it is used in
> the ``jed'' editor for example.
These are undoubtably better languages than TCL, at least from a
"pure" language design point-of-view, but, then the current
configuration files will not be compatible with the new ones.
Maybe it is just me that want the configuration files to be backward
compatible... If that is not an issue, then I would use perl. My main
reasons for this is the large base of modules for perl and especially
perl/tk that would enable lots of new possiblities... An perl is
multi-threaded!!!
>
> Regards
> --
> Manfred Bartz <mbartz_at_promail.com>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing
> it and then misapplying the wrong remedies. -- Groucho Marx
> --
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Received on Thu Apr 30 1998 - 07:18:46 BST