[Peter Newman] 8 January 2005:

The "Bootstrap File" is a plain ASCII text file that allows the script-level programmer to select the data types and command/functions they want, in their own personal or application specific programming toolkit.

It looks like (for example):-

 module d:/UPL/lib/interpreters/Tcl.dll           (.so on Linux)
 # module d:/UPL/lib/interpreters/C.dll            (.so on Linux)
 # module d:/UPL/lib/interpreters/Perl.dll         (.so on Linux)
 # module d:/UPL/lib/interpreters/Python.dll       (.so on Linux)
 module d:/UPL/lib/interpreters/Lisp.dll          (.so on Linux)
 # module d:/UPL/lib/interpreters/Scheme.dll       (.so on Linux)

 module d:/UPL/lib/dataTypes/integers.dll         (.so on Linux)
 module d:/UPL/lib/dataTypes/strings.dll          (.so on Linux)
 module d:/UPL/lib/dataTypes/lists/basic.dll      (.so on Linux)
 # module d:/UPL/lib/dataTypes/arrays.dll          (.so on Linux)

 module d:/UPL/lib/io/files.dll                   (.so on Linux)
 module d:/UPL/lib/io/std.dll                     (.so on Linux)

 etc etc

Where '''module''' functions pretty much like Tcl's load - and 'loads' the dll/so whoose path follows on the command line.

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The "Bootstrap File" is loaded by [UPL: The Bootstrap Interpreter].

Which is a small program - typically a small C executable - that understands little more than the '''module''' command (and perhaps '''#''', for commenting out un-wanted modules).

But once all the specified intepreter, data type and command/function dll/so's have been loaded - the script-level programmer then has their something with '''tclsh'''/'''wish''' level functionality.

The facility to then save the result so far, to a binary file, might also be useful.

But the programmer can then carry on to load their application.