Forum OpenACS Q&A: Re: AOLserver/openACS and other scripting languages (besides Tcl)

Yes you can use other programming languages with AOLserver besides Tcl and C. However, no one much bothers. AOLserver's integration with Tcl is excellent, so that's basically what everyone serious uses for development. There are people running out-of-the-box PHP apps with AOLserver, and probably others doing the same with Java, but that's a different sort of thing.

Whether the programmers you hire already know Tcl or not is close to the last thing you should be worrying about. Any good programmer can and will reach basic proficiency with Tcl in a few days, and true expertise in a few weeks (or perhaps months). This is not hypothetical, I've seen that myself first hand.

Actually, I've also seen people I wouldn't be willing to hire as programmers, because they weren't really good enough, also learn enough Tcl to do basic OpenACS work within days. Tcl simply isn't that hard.

And Dave is exactly right that when it comes to learning OpenACS, Tcl is the quick and easy part.