On Fri, 09 Dec 2005 18:50:54 -0500, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> The purpose of scripting is to enable someone non-technical to alter
> logic at run-time.
>
> Basic is a crap language, but it is a perfect scripting language cause
> even my mother are familiar with it. As a programmer I absolutly hate
> the language, but I respect the fact that other less technicall can
> program in VB and VBA alike scripts.
>
> TCL is very cryptic and due to that not suited as a scripting language.

TCL may seem a bit cryptic at first because it's not C-like; however, the  
language was designed to be as simple to learn as possible.  After all,  
the whole language can be described in just 12 rules.

As for making things simple for the lay-man, using BASIC instead of TCL  
isn't going to make much of a difference.  Simplicity comes from  
consistent, well designed software.  If you designed a cryptic API for  
BASIC that took 10 lines to dial, whereas the TCL API took only 1 line,  
which is simpler?  Furthermore, a good source of examples and  
documentations such as voip-info is probably the most essential thing for  
helping users.

>
> But, do we need to shoose?
>
> No! OpenPBX could make it's own API enabling other languages to call
> into & control the PBX. Meaning that TCL lovers could use theire beloved
> TCL and others could use vxml or Java or whatever.

IMHO, It would be a _HUGE_ mistake to not have a standard extension  
langauge for OpenPBX.  It should be /possible/ to write extensions in  
other languages, (Like AGI lets you do with less sophistication than an  
actual API) but we should pick _one_ language for standard configuration.

The primary reason behind my thinking is, how will people share their  
configurations?  If you write a dial-plan for your Java setup, and post it  
on a Wiki, your code will mean nothing to people using the other possible  
languages.  Having the user community split in to scores of groups, using  
scores of different languages supported by the API will severely hinder  
the ability of the community to support itself.

Choice is important, but we need to draw a line somewhere.  It's bad  
enough when forks and major revisions are incompatible with each other...  
However I can only imagine how bad it would be if each install of OpenPBX  
was incompatible with other installs.

- Justin Tunney
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