This is a standard Usenet comment from Stallman, so I don't take it that seriously.
Tcl achieved many things, including the Tkinter GUI with a native look in Windows. Other projects like Python rely on it in the shrinking set of included batteries.
I would prefer if Lisp had won, especially in scientific code, but the C-API is not good enough. Unfortunately, currently Python is popular, so one thing is clear: People want a low level C-API in C with a published low-level interface. All other attempts have mostly failed in terms of popularity, so languages that want to take on Python better take note.
I would like to point out that the Tcl C API is exceptionally well-written and provides a robust low-level interface that many developers appreciate. For those interested, you can find the documentation here: https://www.tcl.tk/man/tcl9.0/TclLib/index.html
Tcl achieved many things, including the Tkinter GUI with a native look in Windows. Other projects like Python rely on it in the shrinking set of included batteries.
I would prefer if Lisp had won, especially in scientific code, but the C-API is not good enough. Unfortunately, currently Python is popular, so one thing is clear: People want a low level C-API in C with a published low-level interface. All other attempts have mostly failed in terms of popularity, so languages that want to take on Python better take note.