Archive for August, 2008

Tcl/Tk on the Mac

Monday, August 4th, 2008

so you take one of the easiest languages to write a GUI application in, combine it with an OS that prides itself on look & feel and ease of use, you have a great platform for writing applications. right?

wrong. you have not.

i’ve proselytized Tcl/Tk for the last 10 years. and on windows or linux i wouldn’t use anything else for a gui application.

one thing mac users expect (as i’m beginning to find out) programs are trivial to install, and generally easy to use, most with a shallow learning curve.

but using tcl/tk on the mac is frustrating. probably because various installers i’ve tried couldn’t quite get it right. that includes the activestate installer.

there are some programs i want to start writing, and i got tired of manually struggling with tcl/tk, so while i still have it installed, i’ve pretty much given up on it for doing anything major.

otoh, i was able to download, install, and write the ubiquitous “Hello World” (cocoa program) in RealBasic2008, all within five minutes.