Version 2 of Tool Protocol Language

Updated 2008-10-28 05:56:48 by CMcC

TPL - Tool Protocol Language.

NB: this is not a description of a new language, but an essay on thinking about tcl in a different way.

The world has many protocols for communicating between processes (IPC). Some are binary, some are ASCII. I will call ASCII protocols for IPC protocol languages.

Examples of protocol languages and binary protocols

• XML is used in XML RPC type IPC.
• FCGI, SCGI, CGI have aspects of protocol languages, and some of binary protocols.
• HTTP is used in REpresentational State Transfer, REST
• JSON is used in AJAX
• several data representation languages YAML, ...
• XDR is a binary protocol used in SUN RPC
• command-line protocol - used to invoke commands from a process, per the unix system() command, e.g.

Tcl (arguably) has many characteristics desirable in a protocol language:

• minimal syntax
• readily parseable
• omnipresence
• well known and understood
• flexible
• expressive
• long history of data-as-code and code-as-data
• long history of use of little languages

The purpose of this page is to argue this assertion, to explore the truth of the foregoing assertion, to explore counterarguments, to deepen understanding of tcl as a protocol language, to explore prerequisites for its use in this role.

It seems to me CMcC that a cut-down tcl syntax, without special meaning attributed to {*}, $ and would serve well in this role. Such a restricted syntax should be called TPL.

---