Version 4 of Tcl over Python

Updated 2004-06-19 15:09:43 by jcw

20040619 CMcC: A late night on Tcl'ers Chat, some wild ideas, here's one:

What if Python had a new additional parser which made it look like Tcl?

I envisage it as follows:

  1. a line of input is broken up into elements, as per the Endekalog.
  2. the 0th element of the resulting list is resolved as an object, or the name of an object
  3. the resolved object is inspected for a .__tcl__ method which is then called with the entire line as arguments.
  4. if there is no .__tcl__ method, the 1st element is treated as a method on the 0th object, and invoked on the object with the usual Python calling convention.
  5. the default .__tcl__ method calls the object with args 1..n with the usual Tcl calling convention.

There are assumed to be a bunch of objects inheriting from a TclCommand class, e.g. if foreach while set (etc etc)

Add uplevel to Python and voila - you have something which looks (very nearly) like Tcl, but is running over Python.

I really think this is feasible. It could give you Tcl script level compatibility in Python, I think.

Let the games begin :)

Interesting idea. Note that there are also some deeper differences to mull over, such as copy-on-write (side-effect-less changes to lists), and the event model. -jcw