From: Hal DeVore <haldevore(_at_)earthling(_dot_)net> Date: Mon, 06 Jul 1998 14:22:03 -0500 louie(_at_)UU(_dot_)NET wrote:I had often thought of replacing that mechanism with a Tcl interpreter so that the functions performed by the format files could be implemented in a more clear way with simple Tcl scripts.An interesting and useful thought. I'd have a couple of concerns, though. 1) Language wars (i.e., why didn't you choose (insert language here), it would be _much_ better for this because (insert rant here).
Even though I *much* prefer perl over tcl (I teach both, BTW), for this
purpose, tcl is clearly the better choice for two reasons that I can think of:
1) exmh. Many of us are exmh users and exmh could gain a lot from
using tcl.
2) tcl was designed for *exactly* this kind of purpose.
2) Size and speed, MH/nmh is relatively lean and mean.
I wouldn't think we'd want the original separate executables to disappear, but simply to have a shell which supports the MH/nmh commands as a tcl extension. If you don't use the shell, nothing changes.
3) What to do for folks who don't have / don't want / can't install Tcl
If tcl isn't available, just don't build the shell. Chris -- Chris Garrigues Deep Eddy Internet Consulting +1 512 432 4046 609 Deep Eddy Avenue O- http://www.DeepEddy.Com/~cwg/ Austin, TX 78703-4513 My email address is an experiment in SPAM elimination: If it starts with cwg-dated..., it is *only* valid for 2 weeks. If it starts with cwg-sender..., *only* the person the message was intended for can reply to it.
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