The Tool Command Language (Tcl) is a scripting language. Togther with the graphical user interface toolkit Tk it is a programming tool which is ported to many operating systems. While not as efficient as compiled programming languages or compiled user interfaces, it allows fast development of code in a high level programming language.

What you can do with Tcl is best seen with a few examples. After having downloaded a file say "command.tcl" and after having made it executable with chmod "755 command.tcl" it can be executed like a shellscript. command.tcl , make buttons to execute commands on your desktop showphoto.tcl , Display graphics mandelbrot.tcl , Show the mandelbrot set europa.tcl Label points in a picture getquotes.tcl Get a stock quote mankala.tcl Play Mankala stopwatch A stopwatch You might find Tkl/Tk is especially useful to test programs which output numerical values. The program duffing.c for example produces orbits of a ordinary differential equation. With input.tcl and output.tcl , you can interact with that program graphically instead of staring at numbers only.

Last update: 9/16/2000

Back to the Math department homepage