Customer Reviews

Practical Programming in Tcl & Tk

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The contents of the book are reasonable, but not great. All too often, there is a reliance on looking at supplied examples, rather than actually giving definitions and specifics. Both are necessary, so I found that having Ousterhouts definitive book beside this one to be useful. The two complement each other nicely.

BUT... the book is basically un-usable because of the lousy binding! After only light use over a couple of weeks, the darn thing is falling apart! Pages are dropping out of it. I pride myself on taking good care of my books, especially ones that I plan on using for a long time. None the less, this one is fragile, preventing me from recommending it to anyone.

(This is a followup to my commentary in May) I've used Welch's book extensively for Tcl/Tk work for some months now. Although there are some gripes that could be made, I find the book indespensible. It is perched on top of my monitor, and use it daily (hourly?).

As for the binding... The people at Amazon were amazing. They were kind and generous enough to replace my crumbling copy. Mr. Welch, the author, then also complained to the publisher on behalf of all the readers, and I understand that they will be offering a lay-flat binding in the November printing! My hats off to everyone. I'm deeply impressed.

This is one of my favourite computing books.

After you've studied a couple 3GL system language's and played with Perl & scripting. Understand computing concepts, (Tcl probably isn't too good for random beginners or people who just don't like the paradigm). If you're into computing and want.., then go for this one.

When you are the only person on campus doing-knowing any Tcl / Tk, you had better get the right book.

I mailled Brent with a question and sure enough he got back to me. (try that with Lara Lemay).

So for such a good book and service - 5 star award.

I bought this book when I was first learning Tcl/Tk. If you expect to learn Tcl/Tk by just reading the book from cover to cover, you're sadly mistaken. I've come to learn that it is like any other book ... you learn to program by <b>PROGRAMMING</b>. This book provides a great introduction to Tcl/TK as well as an intro to more advanced Tcl/Tk functions. This book is a great reference, as well.

On another note, can we encourage the publisher to release this book in a hard cover?!?!? I'm getting ready to buy another copy of this book because the pages are falling out!!! :-)

Welch's book is the only Tcl Tk book I use today. I started to learn Tcl Tk using Ousterhout's book. But after my 2nd Tcl Tk project, Ousterhout's book became woefully inadequate. So I went out and bought 3 other Tcl Tk books before I discovered Welch's. Now, I don't even look at any other Tcl Tk book. Welch is my best reference. The book contains numerous examples which makes using Tcl Tk even more fun.

I agree that the explanations at times are confusing, but at least Welch addresses many topics. Other books I found to be too limited in scope, contained too few examples and lacked depth and detail on Tcl Tk commands. Welch's is not a perfect book, but I think it is the best in the market for my needs.

This book may be great as a reference book but falls far short of a book for initial learning of TCL/TK. I have programmed in C and have written UNIX shell scripts and still find the book very confusing.

It's a bit older than I wanted, but I knew that it was going to be since it's a pretty old subject. I was disappointed there was a floppy disk vice a CD. However, the floppy couldn't be read, so it was useless. It would have been nice not to have to type in the example programs. The book arrived in great shape and quickly.

I have been using this book for quite some time now and I am happy to say that it's a very nice book for learning and reference (though I wouldn't give five start rating for learning). In my past experience I haven't had many occasion in which I couldn't find the answer to my question/doubt. If you are or going to be serious developer in tcl/tk, this book will definitely be on top of your desk.

This is a very good reference book on an increasingly complex Scripting Language. Helps clarify a lot of things and you'll know where to look for what. However, Is most useful when used in Conjunction with the "Effective Tcl/Tk Programming" book.

Mr. Welch's book is nice in the way the examples tie together from many different sections. However, I feel that he has too much time devoted to flashy tricks, immediately followed by stern "don't do this" warnings. While the examples are rich, they often are not explained thoroughly. I have found myself looking at ambiguous examples several times, which frustrated me. My suggestion is to include a brief question-and-answer section at the end of each chapter, especially in the intro. Between five and ten short questions would dramatically improve retention and also help solidify concepts.