What is Tcl?
The name Tcl is derived from "Tool Command Language" and is pronounced "tickle". Tcl is a radically simple open-source interpreted programming language that provides common facilities such as variables, procedures, and control structures as well as many useful features that are not found in any other major language. Tcl runs on almost all modern operating systems such as Unix, Macintosh, and Windows (including Windows Mobile).
Tcl is a very simple programming language. If you have programmed before, you can learn enough to write interesting Tcl programs within a few hours.
History
The Tcl programming language was created in the spring of 1988 by John Ousterhout while working at the University of California, Berkeley.Originally "born out of frustration", according to the author, with programmers devising their own languages intended to be embedded into applications, Tcl gained acceptance on its own. John Ousterhout was awarded the ACM Software System Award in 1997 for Tcl/Tk.
"Tcl attracted much of its early following because it was the only sane way to create user interfaces under Unix," according to the Tcl Developer Exchange. Now it does the same for Windows and other platforms.
What makes it special?
The speed of development. Tcl developers claim that applications involving GUIs, string-handling or integration can be built between five and 10 times faster than using C or C++."Tcl attracted much of its early following because it was the only sane way to create user interfaces under Unix," according to the Tcl Developer Exchange. Now it does the same for Windows and other platforms.
Uses of TCL
Tcl was designed from the outset as a flexible language with a small core, that could be adapted in ways the original authors couldn't have foreseen. Indeed, thanks to this flexibility, Tcl has been used in everything from Cisco routers and Tivo set-top boxes, to AOL's web servers, to the NBC television network's control center (see the Audience page). This flexibility is reflected in the wide array of useful fields the language is employed in, and even more so in the new and unique applications that are based on Tcl!
Tcl truly is a general purpose language. This page describes just a few of the many, many areas where people use it.
Web Applications - its strong string manipulation and networking capabilities, Tcl is a great match for web applications.
Desktop GUI Applications - Tcl's popularity as the only sane way to write GUI applications under Unix and X11. People found Tcl's dynamic approach a natural fit for GUI's, making GUI development much easier and faster than with lower-level C and C++ oriented toolkits.
Embedded Development - Tcl is a very compact language and is easily integrated with special hardware, it is a popular choice for embedded development. You'll find Tcl hidden away on many devices, including many networking products from Cisco and others, and set-top boxes including Tivo. Embedding Tcl within other software projects is of course also hugely popular, and has become the dominant control language in some industries, such as in electronic design automation (EDA) and computer-aided design (CAD) applications.
Network-aware - Tcl has a rich and powerful event-driven programming model that makes network programming easy, allowing clients and servers to be created with just a few lines of code. Networking, files, GUI events — all work the same way, making for a consistent, easy to learn and powerful programming style, without relying on extra libraries.
As per the above uses, we came to know that TCL is a language uses in the Computer network servers to provide the interface level approach.
TCL software installation and further Tutorials will continue in our upcoming articles.
Download TCL Package: Linux/Mac/Unix, Windows
