ten reasons why people choose tcl

There are many different reasons why people use Tcl but most of them
fall into just a few categories. Here are the top ten reasons why people
use Tcl today.

1. Rapid development
2. Graphical user interfaces
3. Cross-platform applications
4. Extensible applications
5. Flexible integration
6. Ready for the enterprise
7. Testing
8. Easy to learn
9. Network-aware applications
10. The Tcl community
11. BONUS: It's free!

1. Rapid development
The most important reason why people use Tcl is that it gets their job
done faster. In many cases you can implement applications 5-10x faster
with Tcl than with other languages, especially if the application
involves GUIs, string-handling, or integration. Once an application is
built in Tcl, it can also be evolved rapidly to meet changing needs.

2. Graphical user interfaces
With its Tk toolkit, Tcl provides facilities for creating GUIs that
are incredibly simple yet remarkably powerful. For example, the Tk
canvas widget makes it easy to create displays with graphics, yet it
also provides powerful facilities such as bindings and tags. The text
widget provides sophisticated hypertext capabilities and more. No
other toolkit has the same combination of simplicity and power. Tcl
attracted much of its early following because it was the only sane way
to create user interfaces under Unix; now it provides these same
benefits on Windows and Macintosh platforms too.

3. Cross-platform applications
Tcl runs on Windows (95 and NT), Macintosh, and nearly every
imaginable Unix platform. This makes it an outstanding tool for creating
cross-platform applications. For example, the same Tcl script can run
on Unix, Windows, and Macintosh and display a graphical user interface;
the GUI will have a different look and feel on each platform, to
match the user's expectations for that platform. Because it runs on
all major platforms Tcl provides an excellent management and integration
tool for mixed environments, such as those with Windows desktops and
Unix servers.

4. Extensible applications
If you want to create a powerful application that can be scripted and
extended by its users and modified in the field, you'll need to
include an interpreted scripting language in the application. Tcl is
unmatched for this purpose. The Tcl interpreter was designed from the
start to be embedded in a variety of applications. It is easy to
incorporate Tcl into an application, and the Tcl interpreter melds
naturally with the application, almost as if the Tcl language were
designed exclusively for that particular application.

5. Flexible integration
With Tcl it is easy to coordinate existing components and applications
so that they work together effectively. For example, it is easy to use
Tcl as a control language for special-purpose hardware and protocols,
add a GUI or network interface to a legacy application, or integrate new
Java applications with legacy code in C or C++. This makes Tcl a
powerful tool in areas such as network management and factory
automation.

6. Ready for the enterprise
With the Tcl 8.1 release, Tcl became the first (and only) scripting
language suitable for large server applications and other
mission-critical enterprise uses. The benefits of scripting, such as
rapid development, flexible evolution, and easy integration, have been
known for years, but until Tcl 8.1 no scripting language provided all
the facilities needed for enterprise applications, which include
internationalization, thread safety, cross-platform portability, great
GUI capabilities, embeddability, Internet support, and database access.
Tcl 8.1 added internationalization and thread safety, making Tcl the
first scripting language to meet all these requirements and bring the
benefits of scripting to the enterprise.

7. Testing
Tcl is an ideal language to use for automated hardware and software
testing, and it may well be the dominant language used for this purpose.
With Tcl you can easily connect to testing hardware or internal APIs of
an application, invoke test functions, check the results, and report
errors. Tcl's interpreted implementation allows tests to be created
rapidly, and the tests can be saved as Tcl script files to reuse for
regression testing. If you are testing a software application, Tcl
allows you to connect directly to lower-level APIs within the
application, which provides much more precise and complete testing.

8. Easy to learn
Tcl is a very simple language. Experienced programmers can learn Tcl and
produce their first interesting application in just a few hours or
days. Casual programmers can also learn Tcl quickly. (Lesson 1) Tcl is
often used in situations where experienced programmers create a base set
of facilities, and more casual programmers write Tcl scripts to
customize those facilities, create business rules, etc.

9. Network-aware applications
No platform has easier to use networking facilities than Tcl. Servers
and clients can be created in a few minutes with just a few lines of
code. (Example) Tcl provides a great way to add network interfaces to
legacy applications.

10. The Tcl community
Another attractive reason for using Tcl is the large and helpful
community of Tcl users and developers. The Tcl community is a constant
source of ideas, free extensions, applications, and technical support.


11 BONUS: It's free!