Diff: TCL - Waikato Linux Users Group

Differences between version 11 and predecessor to the previous major change of TCL.

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Newer page:	version 11	Last edited on Thursday, June 16, 2005 3:16:02 pm	by SidSwami	Revert
Older page:	version 9	Last edited on Wednesday, June 15, 2005 6:33:13 pm	by SidSwami	Revert

@@ -1,11 +1,11 @@

An [Acronym] for __T__ool __C__ommand __L__anguage.

It is a scripting language embedded in many applications, much like [Elisp] is used in [Emacs] and VisualBasic is in many MicrosoftWindows applications. (This does not mean these languages have anything in common; actually they're about as far apart from each other as imaginably possible.)

-Tcl is ~~included with most if not~~ all Unix-like platforms. ~~Its common combination~~ with the [Tk] ToolKit makes ~~creating~~ [GUI]~~s fairly easy~~ .

+Tcl is available on all [ Unix] -like platforms, as well as on MicrosoftWindows . It is almost always combined with the [Tk] ToolKit. This makes it a good choice for portable [GUI] scripting. There is also a standalone interpreter, but it never achieved much popularity .

-It ~~has also~~ a ~~standalone interpreter~~ like [Perl], [Python] and [Ruby] ~~but isn't as~~ popular~~. Nevertheless~~ , ~~those other interpreters include a modified form of~~ the [Tk] ~~ToolKit library for graphics programming~~ .

+The language itself is limited (todo: in what way? ;-) and does not accomodate the needs of large, complex codebases. It was designed for easy extensibility and embeddability, intended to serve as a universal scripting interface to compiled libraries and applications containing the complexity and providing a simple [API]. The [Tk] ToolKit has remained the only significant success for this model. In practice, more capable dynamic languages like [Perl], [Python] and [Ruby] that are designed to carry the complexity of a large codebase without the need for foreign libraries proved more popular at the one end , while fully scriptable applications never caught on at the other end. With [Tk]'s popularity long since dwindling, giving way to [GTK] and [Qt], so does the prominence of Tcl. Most people would consider it obsolete, though as with any technology (particularly in the OpenSource world), it has found a small following of supporters and enthusiasts who continue to evolve it. There is also still a moderate but significant amount of legacy TclTk code around .