Differences between version 12 and predecessor to the previous major change of TCL.
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| Newer page: | version 12 | Last edited on Thursday, June 16, 2005 7:16:24 pm | by SidSwami | Revert |
| Older page: | version 9 | Last edited on Wednesday, June 15, 2005 6:33:13 pm | by SidSwami | Revert |
@@ -1,20 +1,20 @@
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
.
-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 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 is a 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
.
See also:
* The Tcl community is working on the official [Tcl Tutorial | http://www.tcl.tk/man/tcl8.5/tutorial/tcltutorial.html]
* [Tcl Developer Xchange | http://www.tcl.tk/]
* [The Tcler's wiki | http://wiki.tcl.tk/], a very useful resource on [TCL].
* [The Tcl newsgroup | http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl?hl=en]
-* [Tclwise | http://www.invece.org/tclwise/], a partially online book about [TCL] that might
be a little difficult for newcomers
to understand
+* [Tclwise | http://www.invece.org/tclwise/], a partially online book about Tcl, may
be a little challenging
to newcomers but certainly worthwhile.
* tclsh(1)
* tclsh8.3(1)
* wish(1)
* wish8.3(1)
----
CategoryProgrammingLanguages, CategoryVeryHighLevelProgrammingLanguages
