Practical Programming in Tcl and Tk

Despite its frequently obtuse syntax, Tcl/Tk enjoys a large and enthusiastic following. It's king of the world when it comes to building graphical user interfaces (GUIs) for C programs (particularly those running in X Windows environments), which is what the language originally was invented to do. Tcl/Tk (which is pronounced "tickle tee-kay," and which stands for "Tool Control Language/Toolkit" despite the abbreviation's unusual capitalization) is expanding its scope to encompass fields as diverse as voice scripting and molecular visualization. The latest edition of Practical Programming in Tcl and Tk, the fourth, offers an encyclopedic guide to Tcl/Tk that not only helps programmers solve problems, but enables them to conceive new applications for the language.

The new edition of Practical Programming in Tcl and Tk covers Tcl 8.4, particularly its versatile new Virtual File System (VFS) capabilities that allow you to include FTP sites and other remote directories in ordinary File Save and File Open interfaces. Further new coverage goes to Starkits, with which you can bundle Tcl/Tk programs for deployment, and some new Tk elements. Otherwise, the book is generally revised and improved with additional examples (the sample code has always been one of this book's main attractions) and intelligently laid-out keyword tables. It has a great lay-flat binding, too. This book (with John Ousterhout's Tcl and the Tk Toolkit) remains one of the two must-have Tcl/Tk books. --David Wall

Topics covered: The Tcl programming language and the Tk toolkit on which it most usually operates. Sections cover basic and advance programming techniques, specific aspects of Tk widgets, and extending the C library that defines Tcl. Copious examples make it easier to understand (and quickly employ) effective design strategies.