Practical Programming in Tcl and Tk - Softcover

Welch, Brent; Jones, Ken

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0130385603 ISBN 13: 9780130385604

Publisher: Pearson, 2003

Synopsis

Practical Programming in Tcl/Tk is described as the "bible" for Tcl programmers. It is a guide to the Tcl/Tk programming language and GUI toolkit. This revision includes substantial updates to cover the new version 8.4-giving both an overview of the features, as well as details about every command in the language. The third edition, written on version 8.2, sold over 30,000 copies. Version 8.4 of Tcl - Tool Command Language-provides substantial updates to one of the most popular UNIX scripting languages. The latest release, includes the addition of a virtual filesystem (VFS), many additional programming widgets (spinbox, panedwindow, labelframe),and improved performance of about 20% over 8.3. The book provides a guide to the best ways to use the tooklit. It not only gives accurate details, but includes extensive examples that demonstrate the best way to use the toolkit. The authors are experts that have both developed the technology and used it to solve problems, so they have many valuable insights to relate to the readers.

About this title

Review

The continuing popularity of Tcl/Tk teaches us an important lesson in software language market adoption: early market share in an area of profound need with an easy-to-use product yields generations of loyal adherents. Long after opinion leaders in the GUI scripting community abandoned Tcl/Tk for more modern scripting languages, Tcl/Tk remains a major player, largely because of Brent Welch's encyclopaedic Practical Programming in Tcl/Tk, now entering its third edition and John Osterhout's lucid original text Tcl and the Tk Toolkit

Tcl/Tk survives despite its inelegance ("set x [expr 2 + 2]" rather than "x=2+2") because it was the first practical, well-documented, simple-to-implement solution to the crucial question, "How do I build a GUI for my C program?" Tcl/Tk is available for all major Windows and OS environments, including X11 (native Unix-like windows), Microsoft Windows and Macintosh.

Now with 40 pages of tables of contents, examples and charts, and another 40 pages of newly recompiled indices, Welch's new edition spans 55 chapters divided into seven sections. The sections are divided as follows: two for Tcl, three for Tk, one for the C library and one for updates in Tcl and Tk distributions and functionality. The third edition appears against a healthy backdrop of new Tcl/Tk development. Perhaps the proudest accomplishment of the Tcl community is TclHttpd (chapter 18), a Web server written largely in Tcl. The new server contributes to efforts to unclog the Web server bottlenecks by providing faster client routes to server-side applications while continuing to support the traditional--albeit slower--common gateway interface. The remainder of the book is not new, but it has been augmented and polished.

Welch has expanded discussions and added examples of Tcl's extensibility in C. Tcl/Tk's development scope has grown to include all POSIX internals, such as threads, sockets, TCP/IP interfaces and secure shells.

Recent Tcl/Tk releases enable meta-level execution through eval() and support for Web client plug-ins, all of which are detailed with examples and careful explanation. Functionally, Tcl/Tk lacks nothing compared to modern scripting languages, except lexical flexibility and object-orientated architecture. Nor does it add anything except familiarity, consistency and a long history of above-average documentation.

Welch perhaps wisely omits comparison with his competition, just as Dick Clark never mentions Howard Stern. It is beneath the dignity of ageing market leaders to look back--or even around. --Peter Leopold

From the Back Cover

Practical Programming in Tcl/Tk, 4th edition

• The Tcl/Tk bestseller fully updated for Tcl 8.4!
• Authoritative coverage of every Tcl and Tk command in the core toolkits
• State-of-the-art Tk GUI coverage for Tcl, Perl, Python, and Ruby developers
• Covers all key Tcl 8.4 enhancements: VFS, internationalization and performance improvements, new widgets, and much more
• Covers multi-threaded Tcl applications and Starkits, a revolutionary way to package and deploy Tcl applications
• CD-ROM: Source and binary Tcl/Tk distributions and extensions for Windows®, Linux™, Solaris™, and Macintosh®, plus all code from the book

The Tcl/Tk bestseller, now completely updated for Tcl 8.4!

The world's #1 guide to Tcl/Tk has been thoroughly updated to reflect Tcl/Tk8.4's powerful improvements in functionality, flexibility, and performance!Brent Welch, Ken Jones, and Jeffrey Hobbs, three of the world1s leading Tcl/Tk experts, cover every facet of Tcl/Tk programming, including cross-platform scripting and GUI development, networking, enterprise application integration, and much more.Coverage includes:

• Systematic explanations and sample code for all Tcl/Tk 8.4 core commands
• Complete Tk GUI development guidance--perfect for developers working with Perl, Python, or Ruby
• Insider's insights into Tcl 8.4's key enhancements: VFS layer, internationalized font/character set support, new widgets, and more
• Definitive coverage of TclHttpd web server--written by its creator
• New ways to leverage Tcl/Tk 8.4's major performance improvements
• Advanced coverage: threading, Safe Tcl, Tcl script library, regular expressions, and namespaces

Whether you1re upgrading to Tcl/Tk 8.4, or building GUIs for applicationscreated with other languages, or just searching for a better cross-platformscripting solution, Practical Programming in Tcl and Tk, Fourth Editiondelivers all you need to get results!

The accompanying CD-ROM includes source and binary distributionsof Tcl/Tk, Tcl extensions, and tools for Windows 9x/2000/XP, Linux, Solaris,and Macintosh, plus all the code from the book.

Edition details

• Publisher: Pearson
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0130385603
• ISBN 13: 9780130385604
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 4
• Number of pages: 960