Tools That Tcl Me Pro
Like Perl and Python, Tcl (pronounced "tickle") is a scripting language and
an Open Source platform. The developer of Tcl, John Ousterhout, has formed
a startup called Scriptics to provide tools, commercial support, and extensions
for Tcl. Now Scriptics will walk the fine line between free and proprietary
software.
The first product is TclPro 1.0, a set of tools intended to make life easier
for commercial application developers. It includes a GUI-based debugger and
a syntax checker. It also includes two tools for packaging Tcl applications
for distribution: TclPro Wrapper, which creates a single executable file that
bundles all the individual components of an application; and TclPro Compiler,
which lets the developer distribute a binary executable.
"Scriptics is committed to continuing the development of the open source
Tcl core," says Ousterhout. "At the same time that we're releasing our first
product, we're also releasing Tcl 8.0.3 freely in open source form." Tcl 8.1
is expected to ship early in 1999 and provide support for internationalization
features, threads, and regular expressions.
Pricing for TclPro is $1000 per developer seat and $1200 with a support contract.
