Subject: Re: Reply to Ousterhout's reply (was Re: Ousterhout and Tcl ...) From: Erik Naggum <email@example.com> Date: 1997/04/11 Newsgroups: comp.lang.scheme,comp.lang.scheme.scsh,comp.lang.lisp,comp.lang.tcl,comp.lang.functional,comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.perl.misc,comp.lang.python,comp.lang.eiffel Message-ID: <firstname.lastname@example.org> * email@example.com | Note that there _are_ at least two implementations of Tcl now (One is | in pure Java, the other in C). Does that move | it into the 'language' arena, despite there not being a formal definition? the first sentence after the sentence you quoted answered your question. to quote myself: languages exhibit the _defining_ property that there is a specification of the syntax, semantics, etc, apart from any implementation; or, briefly, that specification is superior in importance to implementation. you don't get a language merely by reimplementing a tool. you get a language when the two (or more) implementations (in danger of diverting) need to agree on the language they implement in some formal way and use (or write) a specification to help that process. why is this such a terribly complex thing to grasp? #\Erik -- I'm no longer young enough to know everything.