On the Suitability of Tcl/Tk for SYS

Abstract

The Software Engineering Institute (SEI) was called on recently to examine a system hereafter called SYS written entirely in the Tool Control Language/Toolkit (Tcl/Tk) language. In response to some negative comments in the SEI's report the developers presented a list of systems purported to demonstrate the viability of Tcl/Tk as a development tool. A review of the 67 listed systems found that Tcl/Tk is indeed practical for developing large systems. Small systems written in the language often follow a paradigm of classic Tcl/Tk windows. SYS embraced this approach to the extent of involving hundreds of windows. The review showed that no other large system written in Tcl/Tk has anywhere near as many such windows. User interviews suggested that the number of different windows was indeed a problem. SYS should consider an alternative design perhaps a Web-based approach. Some design criteria are described at the end of the report.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Feb 01, 2003
Accession Number
ADA443488

Entities

People

  • Wilfred J. Hansen

Organizations

  • Carnegie Mellon University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Cyber
  • Ground and Sea Platforms
  • Human Systems
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Application Software
  • Basic Programming Language
  • Computer Programming
  • Computer Programs
  • Computers
  • Debugging
  • Graphical User Interface
  • Human-Machine Interaction
  • Information Systems
  • Language
  • Scripting Languages
  • Software Design
  • Software Development
  • Standards
  • User Interface
  • Web Applications
  • Web Browsers

Fields of Study

  • Computer science

Readers

  • Snow Cover Descriptors for Reptiles and Their Illustrations.
  • Software Engineering.
  • Systems Analysis and Design