* The Tcl'ers Wiki
- The comp.lang.tcl newsgroup
- Tcl is simpler. Those without a C/Unix background generally find Tcl syntax far easier to learn and retain.
- Tcl is smaller.
- Tcl is easier to extend, embed, and customize.
- Tcl source code traditionally is a model of lucidity. Perl source code traditionally is dense in magic.
- Tcl/Tk is far more portable than Perl/Tk.
- TCP networking is more succinct and less intimidating.
- Tcl's exec and open are gems of accessible and portable functionality, in comparison to the analogous Perl offerings.
- Tcl's unified channel API makes life much easier, particularly on Windows.
- As of spring 2001, Tcl's Unicode [L1 ] capabilities are considerably more mature.
- As of spring 2001, Tcl's threading savvy (read "Tcl and threads") is considerably more mature.
- Subjective stuff: some people find Tcl a better fit to their own sensibilities.
- You can read your own code 6 months after you've forgotten how the program worked.
Also see "Is Tcl Different!", "Why Tcl is better than Perl" [L2 ], "How Tcl is special", ...
(Supply more references.)
Performance is rarely cited as a Tcl advantage. In fact, it's far more common to be asked about "Why Tcl is so much slower than Perl".
I don't use perl much any more. After I spent an hour chasing down a variable that was unexpectably global (the default when I last used perl) I decided that any language where all variables are global unless you specifically say otherwise was not a language I wanted to debug.