wej -- wejgaard holonforth com -- An old Forth hand drifting to Tcl.
I am a physicist who became sidetracked by a PDP8e, once upon a time. This beautiful machine worked wonders in 20 kB with a real OS on elegant DECtapes, where you could watch the bytes flowing. I still like simple solutions.
Since that time I ponder the best ways to build machines in software without suffering the complexity of the orthodox ways of programming. Forth is part of my answer, particularly for programming to the bare metal. For workstation programming I start to like Tcl, particularly in its TclKit realization.
Since 1989 I use my own development systems (http://holonforth.com ). In my experience you can simplify your programming life if you: 1. Store source text in a database. 2. Present and handle the program in a browser as a book-like hierarchical structure.
As a first exercise in Tcl I added a book structure to Wikit, which lets you order the pages in chapters and sections. See HolonWikit.
2007-06-23: HolonWikit has finally evolved to Holon - a simple programming system.
2008-04-20: Tcl is great but its syntax hasn't become second nature to me even after four years of Tcl programming. I miss the simplicity of postfix notation, and have now gone full circle with HolonTForth. The new development system HolonT [L1 ] compiles Forth to Tcl and gives me the best of both worlds.
2012-10-22: There is a better way yet: TclForth, a Forth system that uses Tcl as its native language. It's a classical source file based system independent of HolonT.
2014-07-02: Still offering a Forth access to the wealth of Tcl/Tk with an update of TclForth. With thanks and respect for the Tcl community!