
Tcl/Tk 8.6.6 Released - vasili111
http://tcl.tk/software/tcltk/8.6.html
======
michaelsbradley
Don Libes' _Exploring Expect_ [1] is a devops classic (if there is such a
thing). Highly recommended for those wondering what Tcl is (still) good for!
It would be nice if O'Reilly would make the text (completely) freely
accessible[2], as they have done with some their other older titles[3].

See also the Caius framework[4].

[1]
[http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9781565920903.do](http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9781565920903.do)

[&]
[http://www.nist.gov/el/msid/expect.cfm](http://www.nist.gov/el/msid/expect.cfm)

[2] [https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/exploring-
exp...](https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/exploring-
expect/9781565920903/)

[3] [http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/](http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/)

[4] [http://caiusproject.com/](http://caiusproject.com/)

------
jjnoakes
Tcl shares a little with the lisp family.

Not just being mostly homoiconic, but also the feelings one gets when learning
it.

I went from "this syntax is a mess" in my junior developer days to "aha! it is
so powerful" once I grokked it, for both languages.

Few other languages really gave me that stark contrast in perspective once I
had that moment.

~~~
sdegutis
That's because most languages have roughly equivalent / familiar syntax, thus
you don't start out saying " _this syntax is a mess_ " to begin with.

~~~
jjnoakes
You also don't get the aha! moment either. At least, not in most mainstream
languages.

------
zwieback
Was forced to learn Tcl this year after being able ignore it for the past 20
years. Hard to warm up to but not as horrible as I feared.

~~~
akoster
I believe Tcl is still used to script some major EDA tools, or at least in the
well-antiquated versions of the tools my university was using.

~~~
tonmoy
It is used in the semiconductor industry that I'm now part of. But it's
actually pretty nice. Doesn't come as easily as Ruby does to me, still pretty
handy

~~~
ktRolster
Definitely an improvement over the hacked-together messy collection of
languages that it replaced. I like tcl.

------
zaroth
Oh wow, I've written probably over 50 thousand of lines of Tcl from 2000 -
2009. Started out automating SNMP testing, and then the entire suite of WiFi
Alliance certification tests. Blast from the past.

------
gt565k
I don't know why, but every time I see Tcl popup on HN or somewhere else, I
get this nostalgic feeling of writing tcl scripts for IRC eggdrop bots in the
early 2000s.

For those that remember, this site has a good collection of such scripts:
[http://www.egghelp.org/tcl.htm](http://www.egghelp.org/tcl.htm)

I miss the days when IRC was the primary way of messaging people. Thinking
back of quakenet and gamesurge... Nothing has really managed to replace that
community infrastructure IRC provided. Especially for PC gamers.

Even joining your local city's channel, to find folks with common interests,
and instantly chat with them. Ahhh, the feels!

~~~
eggy
I wasn't a gamer, but belonging to ECHO (East Coast Hang Out) in NYC in the
early 90s was similar. We had monthly meetups at a bar downtown, and I got to
meet people with similar and different, but interesting passions.

I chalk it up to the novelty and size of this sort of thing back then. It
exists now in meetups and other such things like Gitter, but it's more common,
so it seems less special (but it's not!).

------
kazinator
How easily can Tk be completely separated from Tcl?

I've been taking an admittedly superficial look at this landscape; it seems
that languages which have Tk bindings rely on the entire Tck/Tk package, and
tend to have some Tcl cruft in them.

~~~
segmondy
A lot of libraries implement Tk, so you can pretty much write Tk in ruby,
python, perl, etc.

The following link includes example in pure Tk, Python, Ruby & Perl.
[http://www.tkdocs.com/tutorial/firstexample.html](http://www.tkdocs.com/tutorial/firstexample.html)

~~~
aninteger
They do this by bundling A Tcl interpreter with the exception of PerlTk (not
to be confused with Tcl::Tk extension)

------
eggy
I still use it for small, quick apps with a GUI. Like most older languages,
there are a lot of gems that have been written that you can study.

