<HTML ><HEAD ><TITLE >Introduction to Tcl and Tk</TITLE ><META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.7"><LINK REL="HOME" TITLE="Scripting Graphical Commands with Tcl/Tk Mini-HOWTO" HREF="index.html"><LINK REL="PREVIOUS" TITLE="Copyright" HREF="copyleft.html"><LINK REL="NEXT" TITLE="Tcl and Tk Basics" HREF="basics.html"></HEAD ><BODY CLASS="sect1" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#840084" ALINK="#0000FF" ><DIV CLASS="NAVHEADER" ><TABLE SUMMARY="Header navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TH COLSPAN="3" ALIGN="center" >Scripting Graphical Commands with Tcl/Tk Mini-HOWTO</TH ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="copyleft.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="80%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="bottom" ></TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="basics.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"></DIV ><DIV CLASS="sect1" ><H1 CLASS="sect1" ><A NAME="intro" ></A >2. Introduction to Tcl and Tk</H1 ><P > The tool command language Tcl (pronounced tickle) is an interpreted, action-oriented, string-based, command language. It was created by John Ousterhaut in the late 1980's along with the Tk graphical toolkit. Tcl and the Tk toolkit comprise one of the earliest scripted programming environments for the X Window System. Though it is venerable by today's standards, Tcl/Tk remains a handy tool for developers and administrators who want to rapidly build graphical frontends for command line utilities. </P ><P > Tcl and Tk come bundled with most major Linux distributions and source-based releases are available from tcl.sourceforge.net. If Tcl and Tk are not installed on your system, the source releases are available from the SourceForge Tcl project: http://tcl.sourceforge.net/. Binary builds for most Linux distributions are available from rpmfind.net. A binary release is also available for Linux and other platforms from Active State at http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Tcl. </P ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="NAVFOOTER" ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"><TABLE SUMMARY="Footer navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="copyleft.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="index.html" ACCESSKEY="H" >Home</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="basics.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" >Copyright</TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" > </TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" >Tcl and Tk Basics</TD ></TR ></TABLE ></DIV ></BODY ></HTML >