When comparing Tcl vs Basic, the Slant community recommends Tcl for most people. In the question“What is the easiest programming language to learn for a non-programmer (actually used for production)?” Tcl is ranked 2nd while Basic is ranked 7th. The most important reason people chose Tcl is:
Unlike *sh Tcl has a rich standard library.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Standard library
Unlike *sh Tcl has a rich standard library.
Pro Sane quoting rules
Unlike in sh you don't need to quote your variable substitutions ('"$1"').
Expanding of arguments occurs mostly explicit and if yet expected in-place (e. g. using eval
or subst
) it follows strict and well clear rules.
So exec test $argv
would execute test with single argument.
And appending {*} before $argv
would execute test with all arguments (list expansion).
Pro Cross-platform
With a little care you can have the same script work on Linux, *BSD, OS X and Windows.
Pro Widely available
You can expect a reasonably recent version of Tcl to either installed or available in the repositories of any popular open source *nix.
Pro Everything is a string
Tcl can operate at the same level of abstraction as the POSIX shell, which makes it easier to manipulate the output of other programs.
Pro Tk and Expect
Pro Standalone packages
Tcl enables easy deployment through self-contained binaries known as starpacks.
Pro Rich scripting capabilities on a single line
Want to run something 5 times? Here you go: set i 0; time { puts done-[incr i] } 5
If you need real conditional cycle? Not a problem: for {set ready 0; set i 1} {$i <= 100 && !$ready} {incr i} { if {[exec do-some-thing] eq "ready" } {set ready 1} }
Want to measure performance of something or repeat it max 300 times and not longer than 1 seconds? Very simple: timerate { after 20 } 1000 300
How about notifying yourself when some http-server is back online? Sure thing: while {[catch { close [socket localhost 80] }]} { after 1000 }; puts "\7\7\7ONLINE!"
And you can do it also fully asynchronously using events etc.
Pro Visual Basic .net
If you choose the Basic route, which you shouldn't, then at least make it VB.net.
Pro Lots of choice
Pro Lots of information available
Although there are lots of examples and tutorials to be found, for a beginner it can be difficult to find good material as there are also lots of bad examples around.
Cons
Con Not highly regarded by professionals
Not the best choice when looking for a job.