[taway2012]

> everything-is-string semantics make programming an exercise in quoting.

Is your code filled with literal strings? Otherwise why your code be "an exercise in quoting"?

re Python: Remember that EDA tools aren't libraries, they're actual command line program programs. So those tools will still need a command line language. Python is horribly unsuited as a command line language, so the tool will probably continue to have Tcl to present the text user interface.

So you'll then end up with two interpreters in the same tool. Hardly a desirable state of affairs. So yeah, I think the ROI of embedding Python in EDA tools is probably not doing to be worth it.

A lot of the C code backing the Tcl APIs directly build Tcl objects or store pointers to Tcl objects in C. It will be giant task to make those APIs work correctly with Python also.

[davidw]

I think a lot of the EDA people learned just enough Tcl to kind of sort of do stuff, and perhaps did not learn enough, or put that much effort into writing it well. Also, a lot of those packages are pretty old and thus could not take advantage of a lot of the improvement in the language over the years.

That's just what my spider-sense says though - I've never actually looked at those things or their code.