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Objective-Tcl: An Object-Oriented Tcl Environment


Pedja Bogdanovich

TipTop Software
Bethesda, MD 20824

Abstract

Objective-Tcl is an object-oriented extension to Tcl modeled after the Objective-C extension to the C language. The Objective-Tcl system facilitates sending messages to Objective-C objects from the interpreter without the need for any interface specification. The information stored in the Objective-C runtime system is used. In addition, Objective-Tcl facilitates defining classes and categories (collections of methods) in the Objective-Tcl interpreter. It is transparent to the runtime system if a method is implemented in Objective-C or in Objective-Tcl. In fact, a class can have a mixed implementation--certain methods can be implemented in Objective-C, while other methods can be implemented in Objective-Tcl. For Tcl, Objective-Tcl provides a seamless integration with the low-level compiled language (i.e., Objective-C), as well as a dynamic object-oriented environment which promotes more structured programming in Tcl. For Objective-C, Objective-Tcl provides an interactive development environment which promotes rapid prototyping.


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