AET Alasdair Tennant

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Al ten atya hood ot codo tnz < Today's puzzle

Currently (2004) residing in Dunedin, New Zealand

A Tcl/Tk enthusiast with heaps more enthusiasm than skill.

I first came across scripting when I was helping to look after a NT domain environment, with around 500 CAD users. We developed login scripts that would configure a generic cloned workstation to a very specific software environment for each user according to the Domain groups they belonged to, and choices made during login. We used first cmd.exe then KiXtart for this, and it was refreshing to regain control of the machines using the command line again.

When I was looking to extend the scripting to use a GUI, I carefully looked at the scripting languages available, with these main requirements:

• Single point deployment - put onto a \\PDC\netlogon share and everybody has access.
• Easy to learn (essential for me!) for quick'n'dirty or elegant use.
• Good GUI toolkit
• Interactive shell
• Cross platform (my own choice, for versatility)
• Ample extensions for uses that I haven't thought of yet

Tcl/Tk does all this and more. The first one - single-point deployment (with tclkit) - is AFAIK unique among the main script languages, and my main reason for choosing Tcl/Tk (KiXtart does this, too, but is MSWin only and does none of the others). In the first four IMO Tcl/Tk outclasses the others. Tclkit is a great Swiss-Army-Knife to carry on a USB memory stick.

Microsoft has steadily eroded my control of my computers over successive iterations of O/S, spurring me to go through the pain of moving to Linux. Tcl/Tk gave me back control, and put fun back into using it - On ANY O/S! Thanks to all those that have contributed to this amazingly powerful tool.

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