From: christopher.j.meisenzahl@...
Date: 2002-08-20T21:01:46+09:00
Subject: RE: Ruby vs. TCL/TK?

Thanks very much for the feedback, that was great insight!

Now I'll start looking for the easiest way to create a Gui for a Ruby app.  ;-)

 
 
Christopher J. Meisenzahl CPS, CSTE
Senior Software Testing Consultant
Spherion
christopher.j.meisenzahl@citicorp.com



> -----Original Message-----
> From: bbense+comp.lang.ruby.Aug.19.02 
> [mailto:bbense+comp.lang.ruby.Aug.19.02@telemark.stanford.edu] 
> Sent: Monday, August 19, 2002 4:29 PM
> To: bbense+comp.lang.ruby.Aug.19.02; ruby-talk
> Subject: Re: Ruby vs. TCL/TK?
> 
> 
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> 
> In article <H00019f0088ba98c@MHS>,  
> <christopher.j.meisenzahl@citicorp.com> wrote:
> >I've just started playing w/ Ruby and like it quite a bit so far.
> 
> - - Caution: My TCL knowledge is way out of date, I haven't really
>   looked at it closely since about 1995 or so... ( But I am in the
>   FAQ... )
> 
> >
> >But I was wondering, I know that TCL/TK has a large following out 
> >there. Is
> >anyone here a convert from TCL/TK to Ruby? If so, why? What 
> do you consider the 
> >relative advantages/disadvantages of each?
> 
> - - TCL would be great if people used it for what it was designed
>   for, a "Tool Command Language". As an embeddable language I
>   thought it was great, and while TK is showing it's age in
>   1993 it was quite a step ahead of other available X toolkits.
>   I found TCL to be somewhat painful as a general purpose
>   scripting language. I think you can sum up the difference
>   in the two languages as follows: 
> 
>   In TCL everything is a string. 
> 
>   In Ruby everything is a object.
> 
> 
> >
> >Is it a fair comparison?
> >
> 
> - - IMHO, not really. One was designed to be imbedded from day One
>   and the other is designed to be object-oriented from day One. 
>   They each make different compromises in design. If I were
>   looking at embedding a scripting language in my application,
>   I would not put Ruby at the top of my list[1], but I think
>   TCL still compares favorably with things like Lua. Contrarily,
>   TCL would probably be my last choice to write a pure scripting
>   tool in these days. I think TCL's popularity is basically
>   down to two things:
> 
> 1. It was there "fastest with the mostest". In the early '90's
>    there was no scripting language with anywhere as near as 
>    good an Xwindows interface and toolkit. Add expect into the
>    mix and you have a very powerful tool. 
> 
> 2. It was not perl. There were people that detested perl from 
>    the very first. 
> 
> >
> >Can GUI apps be created with Ruby as easily as with TCL/TK?
> >
> 
> - - IMHO it's easier in Ruby, getting documentation on the Ruby Tk
>   interface is the hardest part. But, there are plenty of other
>   Ruby GUI interfaces and some of then are even documented %-). 
> 
> - - Booker C. Bense 
> 
> [1]- Not at least the current ruby implementation. 
> 
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