Why not refactoring in Java or LAMP?
If you delete the first part of the sentence, you can make any conclusion you want. The first part was "If the original code works, why would it need refactoring to xoTcl". Working code doesn't need to be refactored to make that working code nicer to look at. Refactoring must be directed at reuse by higher level APIs. Obviously there could be internal refactoring which has no external impact: who cares about this?
Unfortunately I sense that refactoring into xoTcl will have a vast impact on other code. xoTcl is not an extension of Tcl. It is a new language. If it were an extension, then the authors would not complain about uplevel and upvar. These are not evil commands. This single complaint informs us that the authors see a deficit in Tcl. Believe me, it doesn't exist. The only deficit is in the understanding of how to use Tcl. Why is it that ignorance makes people think they are smart? This whole discussion could be reformulated as: is Tcl Java? Thank whoever, the answer is no. Am I, again, overreacting? Then explain how Tk extended Tcl without complaint.
Anyway, there is a huge difference in saying xoTcl is not good and saying that it doesn't offer much benefit, if any, to an existing code base written in Tcl. I perceive them as distinct programming models. They are presented as distinct, so there doesn't seem to be much argument over this fact. Why is this new language being introduced, and why is it being accepted? Tcl does not have the deficiencies which concern a few here. Tcl is easily adapted to any object model, I would argue that Tcl is very object oriented, maybe exclusively object oriented. Tcl acts on objects. Even commands are objects, so the Tcl model is objects acting upon other objects. Maybe the difference with Tcl is that the same object can be both the actor and that which is acted upon. Some people are offended by this. Screw 'em.
