Using Tcl to Build a Buzzword-Compliant Environment That Glues Together Legacy Analysis Programs

The Siemens Integrated Design (SID) Environment is a system that allows engineers to link together many legacy computer programs. This capability provides significant reduction in effort for defining the conceptual design of electrical generators. The SID environment is a generic tool for running all types of analysis programs (methods) as well as managing their associated data. Methods are plugged into the environment in a simplified fashion by using a well-defined interface. Any features that are added to the environment immediately benefit all methods. Data can be shared between remote sites through an in-house developed, java based, replication server. This paper discusses how Tcl was used to develop the SID Environment and why it was the best choice for our application.