XOTclIDE: the IDE that is almost Smalltalk

I copied XOTclIDE82.kit into my \kits directory for ActiveState Tcl/Tk for Windows.
A double click on the kit ( I already had Tclkit in the PATH for Tcl\bin ) and I was politely asked whether to launch Simple or with Version Control. Simple was fine for now.

The result was a Transcript, a ClassBrowser and I was one click from a WorkSpace.

If you have ever used Smalltalk, this will sound very familiar.

And if you have never used Tcl with the GUI Tk you deserve to take an hour or two and see what simple GUI-driven control of admin tasks can be like.

XOTcl is extended MIT OTcl. There had been a few GUI extensions to Tcl rather as there have been for Python. But these extensions are principled: they do not simply provide a wrapper to a GUI library. The Mozart-Oz system is very much built on principle and exploits Tcl/Tk in its QTk, but lacks an IDE (SICStus Prolog also has a Tcl interface.). Tcl upvar and uplevel are not a replacement for the Mozart implementation of Oz, so my question becomes: does this rich environment impede or foster useful Tcl scripting?

An IDE as rich as that found with most Smalltalk implementations tends to be only as useful as its GUI layout tools and/or GUI specification framework. If it is awkward to tie event handlers and callbacks to widgets and worse to edit or maintain them, then little is gained by having object inspectors and dynamic workspaces. Tcl/Tk itself is marvelously simple (Jython comes to mind by way of comparison - or Rebol or Curl RTE's.)

The XOTcl documentation presents a very flexible, dynamic object framework, but the XOTcl components are file-based Tcl packages which must be registered with Tcl. Tcl is about component integration, but it's own integration of packages is a weak point, which is not to say that packaging and load dependencies cannot also be a headache in Smalltalk.

If I find the learning curve not too steep ( if Curl, the MIT web content language, has a gentle curve then Rebol is like learning to surf: anyone can paddle out ... ) then I will add a header page at eclectic-pencil and see if I can't put up a few useful markers across the terrain.

If you have a favorite language with no non-commercial IDE and are not in love with Eclipse, XOTclIDE does show what a mature IDE can offer a developer in a dynamic language. The only development environment to interest me as much as this was the outline-browser of Strongtalk.

PS Eclipse, of course, evolved from IBM VisualAge Smalltalk ...