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Developer recounts building 100,000-line Tcl system inside Informix

Original: @ CGM I wrote ≈100k+ line system in # Tcl — embedding into the (proprietary) Informix database. I used Tcl precisely b/c

Software developer and free-software figure Bradley Kuhn described writing a system of roughly 100,000 lines of Tcl embedded in the proprietary Informix database. He says he chose Tcl because embedding Perl into an application to provide a scripting language was extremely difficult at the time, while Tcl was designed from the start for exactly that purpose. The remark has drawn attention as a first-hand account of late-1990s scripting language trade-offs.

Why now: It is a candid, nostalgic first-hand explanation of why Tcl was chosen over Perl for embedding, a topic developers still debate.

Bradley KuhnTclPerlInformix

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Evidence

• @ CGM I wrote ≈100k+ line system in # Tcl — embedding into the (proprietary) Informix database. I used Tcl precisely b/c *embedding* # Perl into an application to give it a scripting language was extremely difficult, while Tcl was designed precisely for that. I didn't *mind*… · bkuhn@copyleft.org · 6

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