Language extensibility (was: Why is tcl broken?)

[William Tanksley]

On Wed, 30 Jun 1999 17:10:59 +0200, Fernando Mato Mira wrote:
>Tim Bradshaw wrote:

>> But the language of Lisp macros is Lisp, that's really the whole
>> point!  Without knowing TCL, I find it hard to see how you can
>> introduce new constructs to the language *without* a macro language,
>> even if that language is TCL.

>Err.. What about Forth keywords?

Forth doesn't have keywords, so I'm guessing you mean immediate words.
They're written in the same language, but they tend to use words that
wouldn't be used otherwise (source access and such).  So they really are a
seperate language; after all, Forth is all about building new languages.

Another possible meaning of 'keyword' might be creating words.  Those are
cool, and don't require or generally use new vocabulary, but do require
grasping some pretty new concepts -- compile-time and runtime take on new
meanings.

-- 
-William "Billy" Tanksley