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From: papresco@csclub.uwaterloo.ca (Paul Prescod)
Subject: Re: Reply to Ousterhout's reply (was Re: Ousterhout and Tcl ...)
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Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 17:16:16 GMT
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In article <jameslE8EL5A.vF@netcom.com>,
James Logajan <jamesl@netcom.com> wrote:
>John Ousterhout (ouster@tcl.eng.sun.com) wrote:
>: Every single programmer who ever wrote a program in Tcl, Perl, C++, Visual
>: Basic, or even C could have chosen Lisp, Scheme, or Smalltalk.  But they
>: didn't.
>
>Others have responded to this point adequately; however, I just happen to be
>working on a product that is going to require a scripting or extension
>language. We get to pick our own language (for once). 

Have you considered allowing the user to choose his or her own extension 
language? I am really tired of products forcing Basic or some other terrible
thing down my throat. Under Windows you can use OLE Automation to keep your
product open to multiple scripting languages. Under other platforms you can
use the JVM as your "scripting language" and any language that can be 
compiled to byte codes can be the scripting language. There are dozens of
languages that fit that criteria now, and the list is growing every day.

Of course you could still document a *particular* language, and build in a
compiler for it, but as long as you also document the JVM interface, people
could use their own favourite language.

 Paul Prescod

