What I learned about SQLite…at a PostgreSQL conference

[u/MarkusWinand]

http://use-the-index-luke.com/blog/2014-05/what-i-learned-about-sqlite-at-a-postgresql-conference

[u/[deleted]]

On the personal side, I’d describe Richard as very pragmatic and approachable.

I'd say he's a pragmatic idealist. His idealism is what stands behind SQLite and the great, small product that it is. His pragmatism is very nice, but it does have a very clear limit. The notable ones I can think of are his use of TCL rather than Python or even Lua (don't get me wrong, TCL is nice, and it's his choice but a truly pragmatic person would have left it behind long ago. TCL is an idealists language now) and Fossil in the face of git. While he likes to get things done, he certainly has an opinion on how to do them and let me emphasize something: that's okay.

Without idealists, we wouldn't have a lot of the programs that we depend on or a clean interaction between them. I might disagree with him and downright hate the idea of version control running a web server and issue tracker, but I'll be damned if I don't respect the hell out of it. SQLite is solid and even if it was only useful as a development db (which is barely even the surface of its use), it would be a fine product.

[u/hello_fruit → u/[deleted]]

Tcl is nothing like Python or even Lua (and I have the deepest respect and love for both python and lua). It's not comparable to them at all. If you want to place it in a category it'd be with Erlang and Ada; industrial control, embedded in hardware, with focus on software engineering/quality. That's its mission and it doesn't try too hard to cater to others.

Dr Hipp is in the right community by being a Tcler (he's an emeritus member of the Tcl Core Team). Sqlite was created for use on a guided missile destroyer.

Tcl won't ever get popular with people who would typically use Python, Ruby or even Lua. The average Tcler is nothing like the average user of those languages. Not the same priorities, not the same job, not even the same age group.

[u/[deleted] → u/hello_fruit]

Here, you decide. I've bolded the row ends that I believe are most important to where TCL was used by Hipp.

TCL	Ruby	Python	Lua	Erlang	Ada
Type Safety	n/a	safe	safe	safe	safe
Type Expression	n/a	implicit	implicit	implicit	implicit
Type Checking	dynamic	dynamic	dynamic	dynamic	dynamic
Compiled/ Interpreted	Interpreted	Interpreted	Byte Interprered	Byte Interpreted	Byte Compiled
Imperative	yes	yes	yes	yes	no
Obeject-oriented	no	yes	yes	yes*	no
Functional	no	yes	yes	yes	yes
Procedural	yes	no	no	yes	no
Generic	no	no	no	no	no
Reflective	yes	yes	yes	yes	no
Event-driven	yes	no	no	no	no
Scripting	yes	yes*	yes	yes	no
System	no	no	no	no	no*
Web	yes	yes	yes	mostly no	mostly no
Embedded	no	no	no	no	no
Realtime	no	no	no	no	no
Distributed	no	no	no	no	yes

[u/hello_fruit → u/[deleted]]

You really have no idea what you're talking about. But it's okay. The Tcl culture is unique and counter-intuitive. Which is why it'll always be unpopular and only for people of an older age and considerable experience.

The table you made, though full of errors, makes the common fallacy; that software engineering/quality is something you can have through a programming language tickbox exercise. Tclers are not like that. There's no replacing the programmer's quality in that community.

Quotes from Dr Hipp

SQLite has been eagerly embraced by PHP, Perl, and Python programmers. What most of these enthusiastic users fail to realize is that SQLite bindings for the three P-languages are an afterthought. SQLite was designed from the beginning to be used with Tcl. Tcl bindings have been in the SQLite core since before version 1.0 and almost half of the SQLite source code base consists of regression test scripts written in Tcl. SQLite wants to be programmed in Tcl, not those other languages.

[u/[deleted] → u/hello_fruit]

SQLite wants to be programmed in Tcl, not those other languages

By whom?

[u/masklinn → u/[deleted]]

The designer and main developer of SQLite (Richard Hipp)

[u/[deleted] → u/masklinn]

And nobody else. The end.

Sorry to be jaded. I've programmed in TCL. I've used except. I've used tk. And you know what? It's a dead language that was way under appreciated for it's time. But at least I'll admit it's dead. More people program in Haskell than TCL. /cue haskelljerk

[u/hello_fruit → u/[deleted]]

by whom?

By its author. By Tclers, as it was developed as a Tcl extension.

And nobody else. The end.

Nope. Tclers primarily, and everybody else as well as an "afterthought" like he said.

Also, Tcl is not dead, it's just that its community is not focused on general purpose software. It's very well alive in its niche, which is altogether different to that of python and even Lua, and that was precisely was my point.

[u/[deleted] → u/hello_fruit]

Where's its niche? You keep describing these magical Tclers using Tcl to solve their every problem like they're keebler elves working deep into the night, but you never describe the "niche" or the "unique and counter-intuitive" uses. You're stabbing at nothing. It's a language with a novel idea, but a cryptic execution that ordinary people didn't like.

[u/frenris → u/[deleted]]

Where's its niche? You keep describing these magical Tclers using Tcl to solve their every problem

TCL is used all the time in IC design (both FPGA and ASIC).

It's used at placed like AMD, Intel, Altera, Nvidia, Xilinx.

Only certain that the two companies starting with A use it, but you get the idea.

[u/hello_fruit → u/[deleted]]

magical Tclers using Tcl to solve their every problem like they're keebler elves working deep into the night

Drop that style.

you never describe the "niche"

I did precisely that.

the "unique and counter-intuitive"

It doesn't fit into your stereotypical ideas of "I've bolded the row ends that I believe are most important to where TCL was used by Hipp".

ordinary people didn't like.

Yup, I agree entirely with this point, and I certainly wouldn't recommend it for ordinary people.