a.k.a. Don Cruickshank.
I've worked in IT for more than 27 years (it feels like its been over 2 centuries), and since 1989 as a contract analyst/programmer/developer/GDB/etc. I've been developing (on and off [list "possibly mostly on" [list "in an off kind of way"]]]) in Tcl/Tk since the late 90s. My experience is (mostly) in *nix and Microsoft environments, mostly with database & GUI interface development.
I live in the pretty city of Bristol in the south west of England, and am an avid pretend property developer, although while waiting for the market to recover am back to trying to sell code over the web. There's no jobs for the oldies. I do love a tclkit wrapped solution which uses sqlite and is web enabled. It's a delight to work with.
Last role
I designed and developed the Tcl/Tk part of the On Line Mission Support and Evaluation system (OLMSE) to manage and analyse telemetry from the European Robotic Arm (ERA) which is (will be) mounted on the Russian segment of the International Space Station for Spacebel NV as part of the Dutch Space/ESA MPTE (Mission Preparation Training & Evaluation) project.
Previous clients
| Spacebel NV | Belgium | Developed the OLMSE (OnLine Mission Support and Evaluation) system for the ERA (European Robotic Arm) which may one day this centuary go on the ISS, in Tcl/Tk |
| Alliance-UniChem | Londonish | Cloverleaf order processing messaging system in Tcl |
| Liberata | Londonish | Informix developer. Used Tcl to create tools for use with documentation |
| Medas | London | 4Js/Informix developer. Tools in Tcl |
| Hewlett Packard | Germany | Web order tracking system written in Tcl |
| Motorola | Wiltshire | Created the basestation Generic Lookup Utility (GLU) in Tcl/Tk |
| e.CommerCell | Cheshire | Informix developer. Used Tcl to create reports |
| DAF Trucks | Holland | Informix DBA |
| Flagstaff | Hampshire | Informix developer |
| Knoll Spinning | Saddleworth | Project Manager |
| Orange | Bristol | Informix developer |
| MSU Ltd. | Malta | Informix developer |
| Bristol & West Bld Soc. | Bristol | Informix developer |
| NIG Skandia | London | IBM mainframe developer |
| Vickers Shipbuilding & Engineering Ltd. | Somerset | Informix developer |
| Dixons PLC | London | IBM mainframe developer |
| Wessex Water PLC | Somerset | IBM mainframe developer |
| ISI Ltd | Berkshire | IBM mainframe developer |
| South Wales Electricity | Glamorgan | IBM mainframe developer |
| London Life Limited | Bristol | IBM mainframe developer |
My way of using Tcl/Tk (2012-July-29 22:44)
Ok. I'm well over 50 and never likely to get a job in industry again, so I'm going to try and dump some of the little I've learned here.
My preferred variant of Tcl/Tk is Tclkit, simply because it's cleaner and safer to have sources under some form of locked down control. Having said this I tend to minimise the source (that is wrapped into the StarPack) to that which simply loads libraries and packages, loads the sqlite dll, and initiates a startup process (i.e. the unique stuff). All my 'productive' source is maintained on a table in a sqlite database which the main.tcl retrieves and uplevels together with configuration detail for each namespace. The source is (usually) highly normalised and makes use of regsub to expand 'recipes', or combinations of common and unique scripts, held on the database before uplevelling them. This provides several benefits, chief amongst which is easy maintainence, but also it provides for a consistent look and feel and methos of processing across the system. The templates thenselves are never uplevelled. A maintainence subsystem exists to load/unload individual sources from the database for editing (which is deleted before the product is released), and for full text seaching. There's a whole lot of other stuff I'll add later when I'm sober. ;^).
ThomasCoyne - 2011-03-05 13:23:07
What a truly awesome site for Tcl.