[NTLUG:Discuss] tcl or python

[Chris Cox]

On Mon, 2009-05-25 at 17:55 -0500, Leroy Tennison wrote:
> I decided to learn tcl because of tk and it's ability to produce GUI 
> programs on linux.  I'm currently reading "Tcl and the Tk Toolkit" and 
> having more reservations the further I get into it (should I be reading 
> something else?).  Tcl is beginning to look like a programmer's "mine 
> field" with all kinds of subtle surprises for the uninitiated due to 
> deferred processing.  Although tcl can be used on Cisco which is a plus, 
> I'm beginning to ask if I should change focus to python after the recent 
> post.  Can someone who knows both comment on the relative strength and 
> weaknesses of the two?  Thanks for the input.

Tcl is one of those things that is a victim of rumor and circumstance.
Pretty much 99.9999% of those against Tcl have NO idea what they
are talking about.  With that said, the damage has been done and
so the main reason for not chosing Tcl is because the lynch mob
has stormed the castle and the monster has been forced to flee.

With that said, it's the ONLY language (IMHO) that makes
creating nice GUIs very easy, however it is sadly lacking
on creating a unified look and feel.  Tk is probably one of
the most valuable pieces out there and while interfaces have
been built to other languages, I've looked at them, and ONLY
Tcl has an easy to use object style model.  The others are
verbose and show the difficulty of trying to leverage another
language's toolkits.

What about Python?  Python is hot.  It is "worshipped".  So,
if you want an active community and lots of support and add
ons, Python is definitely the better choice.

I have often attempted to rewrite some of the code that
I did in Tcl/Tk into something else, like Perl, Ruby, or
Python.  But at the end of the day, I find it would be
easier to do another Tcl/Tk rewrite (sad but true).

And with that said, I pretty much don't to anything in
Tcl/Tk.... that hiddeous beast.  It's evil by community
proclamation.  Projects that use it are immediately
subjected to ridicule (again, sad, but true).  There's
a lot of history around the why and how it all
happened.

So... if you need a complex graphical app builit in
a matter of MINUTES... use Tcl/Tk.  If you want
people to use your app, choose something else... and
expect dev time to be similar to programming in
almost any other type of language.

Just my opinion of course.