The Tcl War

In late September, 1994, Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation posted an article to comp.lang.tcl and several other newsgroups titled Why you should not use Tcl . Predictably, a flamewar ensued, which lasted in one form or another for almost a month (until it was pre-empted by the GNU project's announcement of plans for its own extension language, later dubbed GUILE).

Like most flamewars, there was much heat and little light. However, there was some light, and as the maintainer of the Tcl bibliography (which attempts to be very thorough), I took it upon myself to archive the interesting posts, partly to give the bibliography entry something to point at, and also to provide a balanced perspective: it seemed likely, even at the beginning, that the GNU project would archive Stallman's original article and redistribute it without the many reasonable rebuttals which appeared.

Although I tried to take a neutral perspective, and saved articles espousing diverse points of view, this selection unavoidably reflects my own prejudices. Included are a few articles which contain nothing but a snappy comeback. I missed a few important articles, such as one by Bill Janssen which started an entire lengthy subthread. And naturally, all of my own posts are included.

Starting: Sun 25 Sep 1994 - 06:14:14 CST

Ending: Tue, 18 Oct 1994 01:02:03 GMT

Messages: 68

Last message date: Tue, 18 Oct 1994 01:02:03 GMT

Archived on: Fri Feb 10 1995 - 18:04:38 CST