View Source: Tcl - Waikato Linux Users Group

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A scripting language embedded in many applications, much like [Elisp] is used in [Emacs] and VisualBasic is in many MicrosoftWindows applications. It is not well suited for writing large programs, but because it is almost always combined with the [Tk] ToolKit, it used to be a good choice for writing portable [GUI]-based scripts. Most people would probably consider it obsolete; the dwindling popularity of [Tk] only contributes to this.

[Perl], [Python] and [Ruby] are better choices for more modern scripting needs, with [Lua] suitable for embedded use, while [GTK] and [Qt] nowadays lead the ToolKit pack. The problems with Tcl are mainly in its data-structuring limitations: arrays and lookup tables are not [first-class objects|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-class_object], and the lack of [references|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reference_(computer_science)] makes it difficult to pass around complex data structures easily.

See also:
* The Tcl community is working on the official [Tcl Tutorial | http://www.tcl.tk/man/tcl8.5/tutorial/tcltutorial.html]
* [The Tcler's wiki | http://wiki.tcl.tk/], a useful resource on Tcl.
* [Manual Pages | http://www.tcl.tk/man/]
* [Tcl Developer Xchange | http://www.tcl.tk/]
* [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, may be a little challenging to newcomers but worthwhile.

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CategoryProgrammingLanguages

4 pages link to Tcl:

Last edited on Monday, June 1, 2009 2:56:15 pm by LawrenceDoliveiro

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