[moved to [EMAIL PROTECTED]]
On Mon, Jul 15, 2002 at 02:58:22AM -0400, Will Coleda wrote:
> Perhaps this requires a polite rebuttal on a few points? (particular the
> 5.8/Unicode points?)
>
> http://www.scriptics.com/advocacy/perl.html
>
> Regards.
> --
> Will "Coke" Coleda
A few points:
1) this document claims to be last updated just a few days ago
(July 8, 2002)
2) The URL listed above is slightly distracting; scriptics.com
no longer exists, but the domain ghosts the main "Tcl Developer
Exchange", also located at www.tcl.tk and elsewhere.
3) A look at the top of the page shows who is running this site
at the present moment: ActiveState.
4) there seem to be a host of long-lived misconceptions and
half-truths here. It starts with the first line:
As the two leading scripting languages, Tcl and Perl are often
compared.
(Funny, most people I know would be generous to put Tcl at
4th or so, with the top two being Perl and Python, or PHP and
Perl...)
5) Some of what's presented here is just embarrasing:
* Development tools. TclPro product provides a sophisticated set
of development tools for Tcl, including a powerful graphical
debugger, code checker, and other tools. TclPro runs on Windows
as well as several versions of Unix. The commercial tools
available for Perl are less complete and run mainly under
Windows.
Sounds like ActiveState is promoting TclPro (is that still a
product? where's the link?) over other tools like Komodo and
VisualPerl/Perl.NET, including misleading the reader on the
capabilities of ActiveState's own Perl tools..
6) Nick Ing-Simmons already pointed out the humor in this comment:
Dozens of Tcl extensions are available freely on the Internet
All in all, it looks like the left hand doesn't know what the right
hand is doing here.
If this document were worthy of rebuttal, then I think someone at
ActiveState would tune it down a little, just to cut down on the
self-disparaging remarks. As it stands, it looks like a
not-entirely-objectionable rebuttal to some rather outdated
pro-Perl/anti-Tcl advocacy that's still lingering around. If any
action should be taken, it should be to update some of the
embarrasingly old perl-vs-the-world pages on perl.com (mostly
gathered by tomc some 5 years ago).
Z.
