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Noumena Corporation


Whitmore Lake
Michigan

Noumena provides on-site instructor-led Tcl, Linux and Database training.

For those who prefer to learn on their own, Noumena recommends TclTutor and Tcl/Tk: A Developer's Guide.

Tcl/Tk: A Developer's Guide
Tcl/Tk: A Developer's Guide Third Edition
Published by Morgan Kauffman, May, 2012
ISBN: 978-0123847171

Tcl is the Open Source movement's biggest hidden success story. It runs the telecom industry from the EDA tools used to design the chips to the test platforms that validate them up to the applications that run on Cisco Routers and AOL's web server.

The language supports modern constructs like catch/throw error handling, encapsulation, modularization and Object Oriented. It's fast and easy to learn, and powerful enough for the US DoD and NBC Broadcasting studios.

My book's goal is to bring a programmer up to speed on Tcl/Tk as quickly as possible. I describe the basics of the Tcl/Tk language, techniques for using it effectively, and tools for helping you develop applications better and faster.

Tcl/Tk: A Developer's Guide Third Edition Table of Contents
  • 1 Tcl/Tk Features
    A quick overview of what Tcl/Tk offers the developer.
  • 2 The Mechanics of Using the Tcl and Tk Interpreters
    The low level functions of how to run the interpreter, what the prompts are, etc.
  • 3 Introduction to the Tcl Language
    Describes the Tcl syntax, substitutions, data types, a subset of the core commands, and offers short examples of use.
  • 4 Navigating the File System, Basic I/O and Sockets
    Describes how to access the file system, perform I/O with files, users, and client/server sockets.
  • 5 Using Strings and Lists
    How to find patterns and parse data in strings and lists. Using regular expressions and modularizing with procedures.
  • 6 Complex Data Structures with Lists, Arrays and Dicts
    How to use the Tcl Array, how to examine the state of the interpreter, and an example of building complex data structures (a splay tree) in Tcl.
  • 7 Procedure Techniques
    Using procedures to implement object oriented style programming in Tcl.
  • 8 Namespaces, Packages and Modules
    How the namespace command command works, and how to use it for data and procedure encapsulation. How to use the package command for modules.
  • 9 Basic Object-Oriented Programming in Tcl
    The basics of TclOO. Creating classes, inheritance, mixins
  • 10 Advanced Object-Oriented Programming in Tcl
    More techniques for TclOO. Class methods, class variables and dynamic classes.
  • 11 Introduction to Tk Graphics
    The basic widgets, how to use the geometry managers.
  • 12 Using the canvas Widget
    Things you can do with the canvas including finding and modifying displayed items, binding actions to displayed items and creating new pure Tk widgets.
  • 13 The text Widget and htmllib
    How to use the text widget, and the htmllib package.
  • 14 Tk Megawidgets
    You can build complex widgets out of the basic building blocks. This chapter describes how to do it.
  • 15 Extending Tcl
    One of Tcl's strengths is how easy it is to add new functionality to the interpreter. This chapter explains how to do it.
  • 16 Applications with Multiple Environments
    Using threads, the interp command and the event loop
  • 17 Extensions and Packages
    Descriptions of several popular packages with enough information to start using them. Discusses incr Tcl, Expect, TclX, SybTcl, OraTcl, MySQLTcl, VSdb, BWidgets, BLT, and the img extension.
  • 18 Programming Tools
    Descriptions of several application development tools, both freeware and commercial. Includes code formatters, checkers, debuggers, GUI generators, compilers wrappers extension generators and IDEs.
  • 19 Tips and Techniques
    A collection of tips and tricks and a list of common mistakes

The Library Journal Review for Tcl/Tk For Real Programmers (4/1/99)
Tcl/Tk (called tickleTK) is a very powerful programming language for all sorts of projects, from visual application development to web scripting to meshing together varieties of applications and utilities written in different languages in order to create a new application. The program competes very favorably with Visual Basic, Java, Perl, and UNIX shell languages. It is a great tool for rapid prototype development; runs on almost all hardware, with no code changes; and is much easier to learn than Perl, C/C++, or Java. Flynt's book is aimed at programmers, but it is an excellent introduction to learning the basics of Tcl/Tk. Recommended for large public libraries and most academic institutions.
Tcl/Tk: A Developer's Guide should be available at your local book store. If they don't have the book in stock, they'll be able to order it via their normal distribution channels.

A few Barnes & Noble's Bookstores keep Tcl/Tk: A Developer's Guide in stock. If your local book dealer doesn't stock it, feel free to tell them that they should stock my book. :-)

< You can also order Tcl/Tk: A Developer's Guide from Amazon Books, enjoy Amazon's low prices, and have the book shipped to your door by clicking the Buy button to the left.

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