Objective-Everything Release 5.  Copyright ©1994-1998 by TipTop Software, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.

  Introduction

Objective-Tcl (pronounced "objective-tickle") is a hybrid object-oriented system based on the Objective-Everything technology. The Objective-C runtime system which supports compiled objects is augmented with an object-oriented interpreter based on Tcl.  The system provides an interactive development environment which promotes rapid prototyping by providing the ability to access Objective-Everything (ObjC, ObjPython, ObjPerl, ObjTcl) objects from the interpreter, as well as the ability to dynamically create classes and categories at runtime in Tcl.  In addition, Objective-Tcl facilitates direct interaction with the compiled C code from Tcl.

This document is a programmer's introduction to Objective-Tcl.  For an overview of Objective-Tcl please look at the Objective-Tcl paper in the Tcl/Tk Workshop 95 proceedings.  The paper is also available from http://www.tiptop.com/.

You should be able to use the Objective-Tcl system even if you are not a Tcl expert. However, to become a Tcl expert, we recommend John Ousterhout's book on Tcl and Tk: Tcl and the Tk Toolkit, Addison-Wesley, 1994, ISBN 0-201-63337-x 1994.  Part I of the book provides an introduction to writing Tcl scripts.   Another good Tcl book is Practical Programming in Tcl and Tk, by Brent Welch, published by Prentice Hall, ISBN 0-13-182007-9. This is an example-oriented book about Tcl and Tk programming.  Objective-C is covered in the standard Apple documentation: NEXTSTEP Object Oriented Programming And The Objective-C Language, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts, 1993, ISBN: 0-201-63251-9.

Also, you may want to install the Tcl man pages (TclMan.pkg).

Online information on Tcl can be found at http://www.yahoo.com/Computers/Languages/Tcl_Tk/ and http://www.sunlabs.com/research/tcl.  Online information on Objective-C can be found at http://www.yahoo.com/Computers/Languages/Objective_C/.

The Objective-Tcl runtime system comes in the form of two frameworks: the basic Tcl language framework, and the ObjTcl framework.  These frameworks are typically installed in /Local/Library/Frameworks/.  In addition, an InterfaceBuilder palette, ObjPalette, is provided.  The palette is typically installed in /Local/Developer/Palettes/. Objective-Tcl frameworks depend on the following frameworks: Foundation, ObjCore; AppKit, and ObjAppKit.


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