Practical Programming in Tcl and Tk

To start with, I bought the book used for 30% of the price. That is a great value, but it came without the CD. I don't need the CD at all, but it still is sloppy. The condition of the book is excellent. If I had had it for 6 months, it would not have been in any better shape.Unfortunately, Tcl is a fantastic language, but highly underrated and about as popular as Windows Vista. That must be the reason that the author stopped republishing this book after Tcl version 8.4. That is a pity, because significant improvements were added since.Nevertheless, the book is great. Very readable, very detailed explanations. The first time I turned to this book when I had a problem I found the solution in less than 10 minutes. It explains everything you always wanted to know about Tcl but could not find on the Internet. Including writing and publishing extensions.Highly recommended if you are one of the 42 people on Earth still developing in Tcl. Be honest, 95% of your code is upward compatible with Tcl 8.4.

Got this to support me for writing a bridge (card game) application on Windows. I got diverted and never finished, but that's not the fault of the book. It was partly the fault of MS Windows, and mostly the Dell Venue 8 Pro that I planned to run it on. I wasted over $300 on that device, which has been sitting in a drawer for many months. Windows seems to be the wrong OS for a tablet, and Dell's implementation - with a seldom-functioning but essential stylus - did not help. End digressive rant. The book is fine, but I plan to restart my project anew on Android, when I get the chance.

I expected from a book praised and priced so high to deliver onpromise. Unfortunately I can't say this is the case with"Practical Programming in Tcl and Tk (4th Edition) " . Yes, itshines through every page that the author(s) who wrote it knows thelanguage in and out; only that unfortunately he (they) failed in presenting this knowledge in a digestable form.I am not new to programming and I would see and say it here if the book was written for advanced readers only, but no, the book is just plain cryptic. You will have to read over and over the same example andexplaining it text to MAY be get to the meaning.The main reason I still bought it is that it was the only more or lessup-to-date book about the language. But now even this reason could be dismissed- on O'Reilly in June 2009 appeared new edition of"Tcl and the Tk Toolkit, Second Edition " By John K. Ousterhout; Ken Jones as Rough Cuts version, I am now reading it and rediscovering thesimplicity of this language . Chances are good it will be availablesome day as printed book as well.

This book is the best 50 bucks I would have ever spent in my life. I picked this book when I was new to scripting world though having working in Linux for all my career I was never big on scripting and picked this book as a learning aid. Since I picked it up in 2006, I have passed on this reference to innumerable people in my professional circle and I would highly recommed this as a starting guide and also as an excellent reference to have on your desk if you want to deal in TCL.Thanks a lot Bernt for such an excellent compilation and presentation.

I got interested in Tcl when a friend of mine had presented me with the Expect application and all the wonderfull things it can do for a sysadmin. Since knowledge of Tcl is required for Expect, I set off looking for a book on the topic... and having read the lines "for beginners and expirienced programmers alike" I thought I hit the target. But what a disapointment...First of all, most books for beginners follow certain format which is not the case with this book. Nothing like "here's how to declare variables", "variables are typeless", "here's how procedures/functions are done", "here's what sets Tcl apart from other languages" or "how to do those things that other languages cannot" that other books for beginners so often cover. I had to look online for the line that starts off the freshly written Tcl script... and this is for beginners?!From skimming over Tcl implementations on different platforms (I guess that covered the beginner's part) authors dwelve straight into the HTML processing by Tcl (as in "hey Tcl programmers, here's how to do web pages!") which only adds to confusion. It doesn't stop there though... Tcl is said to be a glue language that puts different blocks together, but how come that passing commands to the system from the Tcl script isn't covered? Yes, there are dedicated commands for cruising through the directory tree, creating/removing/deleting files, but is that all?! Linux has a rich arsenal of commannds, many of which go beyond those tasks... and you cannot pass them from a Tcl script? Where's the glue then...Same confusing format is followed in the Tk part, except for the canonnical "Hello World" example (straightforward "type it in- here's how it works" breakdown) the rest is off the beginner's path. How to clip a Tcl procedure to a Tk button? Nope, that's not shown- but geometry managers examples plenty abound.Examples are incomplete, explanations vague and I often caught myself reading same line several times trying to understand the point that author tries to make.As for my reason for learning Tcl, the Expect application- it is MENTIONED on couple of paragraphs that end with a web address. Although it may be the shiniest example of Tcl's power, it is not even skimmed over...The content offered doesn't justify the price tag for a beginner's book. If you're a beginner you'd be better off working through the online tutorial at tcl.tk page. It is not only money that you'll save...

I start to learn Tcl for my current two monthes ago. Before this, I worked with Perl. There are not many entry level books for Tcl, this is one. With programming experience, this book is not hard to understand. However, it is not as good as "Learning Perl".

Exactly as described and at less then 10 percent of the new price a real bargain. It even included the CD.

I purchased the book "used - like new". The book is in good shape but is missing the "acoompanying CD-ROM" which includes: source and binary distributions of Tcl/Tk, Tcl extenssions, and tools for Windowss 9x/2000/XP, linux, Solaris and Macintosh, plus all the code from the book. I would not have bought the book had I known it was missing the CD.

Excellent!

So far the one of the best I could find on Tcl. Oldie but goodie.Covers all topics I needed, if I wanted more, I could find the details on tcl.tk or other pages.It was just the right amount of information for me.

Inzwischen ist die aktuelle Version von Tcl 8.6. Das Buch bezieht sich auf die Version 8.4.Und es hat sich EINIGES geändert. So ist z.B. "dict" dazugekommen, der dürftiges Verweis im Inhaltsverzeichniss auf "array" führt leider völlig auf den Holzweg. Auch im Tk ist einiges neu.Ich hab schon keine Lust mehr irgendwas in dem Buch nachzulesen und greife lieber zu "Tcl and the Tk Toolkit", der Unterschied 8.5 zu 8.6 ist nicht so eklatant.Sorry, aber so interessant wie die Zeitung von Gestern ...

Excellent livre pour se former à Tcl et Tk, langages simples mais toujours utilisés.La lecture en est agréable et les exemples fournis vous permettront de progresser facilement.

Sehr gute Beschreibung der Grundlagen und Arbeitsweise von und mit Tcl/Tk.Syntaktisch gut aufgebaut. Gut zu lesen und zu verstehen.In jedem Fall zu empfehlen.