Linux Programming: The New Programmer’s Road Map: Tcl/Tk and GTK+

[ Thanks to Kevin
Reichard for this link. ]

“Tcl/Tk has an interactive mode (not unlike Python or LISt
Processing, for example). You can build objects just by typing in
the syntax in interactive mode. So in effect, I would type in
a bunch of syntax and suddenly off somewhere on my X display a
little box pops up. Then a button, a label, some more buttons, more
labels, etc. Eventually I made it do something (I honestly cannot
remember now what that something was–I am sure it was cool
though).”

“At the time, I thought this was just too nifty and really,
still do. It was a heck of a lot of fun, and I saw why Tcl/Tk had
become so popular. Not unlike other GUI languages, a lot of people
found it a blast to hack on and shared the results (whether useful
or not).”

“While GTK does not offer the interpretive interface that
Tcl/Tk does, it is still quite rewarding: anyone who has
worked even with interpretive languages realizes you must enter all
of the syntax in a file anyway on larger projects. … GTK+ uses a
C-style syntax where most of what one does in the way of generic
operations is done by using the libraries. To me, this is no
different than doing my homework with the glibc documentation, and
for this I see why GTK+ is so popular. A C or C++ programmer should
have no problems (after a bit of reading) getting up to speed with
GTK+. Since I have a preference for C/C++ of course I really
enjoyed it and definitely recommend it for a C/C++ programmer on
UNIX.”

Complete Story