Tcl usage and popularity

Ali M

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Feb 15, 2018, 5:12:23 PM2/15/18

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I browsed the wiki recently
And my of the old contributors seem to have dropped

Also the page of companies using Tcl seem to reference old applications

How popular is Tcl currently, is it still widely used?
Is there still demand for Tcl in the job market?

Regards
Ali

Gerald Lester

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Feb 15, 2018, 7:58:11 PM2/15/18

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On 02/15/2018 04:12 PM, Ali M wrote:
> I browsed the wiki recently
> And my of the old contributors seem to have dropped

Sorry can't parse that sentence, please restate.

> Also the page of companies using Tcl seem to reference old applications

Well, this is true because the person(s) who used to update that page
stopped doing so over 10 years ago.

> How popular is Tcl currently, is it still widely used?

Tcl has both never been and always been widely used -- it is in almost
every Cisco router, Oracle makes extensive use of it, IRC chat bots
(i.e. EggDrop) uses it and on and on, most VSLI design tools use it. It
just is not visible most spots.

> Is there still demand for Tcl in the job market?

There has always been a niche demand for Tcl programmers -- one reason
is that it is often used to allow non-programmers to program.

--
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Gerald W. Lester, President, KNG Consulting LLC |
| Email: Gerald...@kng-consulting.net |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+

Robert Heller

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Feb 15, 2018, 9:00:29 PM2/15/18

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At Thu, 15 Feb 2018 18:58:05 -0600 Gerald Lester <Gerald...@KnG-Consulting.net> wrote:

>
> On 02/15/2018 04:12 PM, Ali M wrote:
> > I browsed the wiki recently
> > And my of the old contributors seem to have dropped
>
> Sorry can't parse that sentence, please restate.
>
> > Also the page of companies using Tcl seem to reference old applications
>
> Well, this is true because the person(s) who used to update that page
> stopped doing so over 10 years ago.
>
> > How popular is Tcl currently, is it still widely used?
>
> Tcl has both never been and always been widely used -- it is in almost
> every Cisco router, Oracle makes extensive use of it, IRC chat bots
> (i.e. EggDrop) uses it and on and on, most VSLI design tools use it. It
> just is not visible most spots.
>
> > Is there still demand for Tcl in the job market?
>
> There has always been a niche demand for Tcl programmers -- one reason
> is that it is often used to allow non-programmers to program.

I recently installed OpenOCD, and was supprised to discover it uses Tcl under
the hood. I was turned on to OpenOCD as a way of downloading cross-built code
to a TivaC Launchpad board using an older Linux flavor (CentOS 6), not
supported otherwise.

Tcl tends to show up in the least expected places. Almost never in any the
"obvious" places (eg mainstream programmer "watering holes [forums]"), but
almost allways lurking somewhere unexpected... :-)

>
>

--
Robert Heller -- 978-544-6933
Deepwoods Software -- Custom Software Services
http://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Linux Administration Services
hel...@deepsoft.com -- Webhosting Services

Cecil Westerhof

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Feb 16, 2018, 3:14:15 AM2/16/18

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Gerald Lester <Gerald...@KnG-Consulting.net> writes:

> On 02/15/2018 04:12 PM, Ali M wrote:
>> Also the page of companies using Tcl seem to reference old applications
>
> Well, this is true because the person(s) who used to update that page
> stopped doing so over 10 years ago.

I suppose it is about this page:
http://wiki.tcl.tk/37389

I added a disclaimer.

--
Cecil Westerhof
Senior Software Engineer
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/cecilwesterhof