{"slug": "tcl-tk", "name": "Tcl/Tk", "category": "dev-libs", "category_name": "Libraries and frameworks", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 4, "warners": 0, "score": 2.983, "rising": 0.35, "first": "2025-11-06", "latest": "2026-10-31", "why": "Now I wish it had won instead of the unholy abomination we have with Electron apps.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 2, "compare": 1, "warn": 1}, "spark": [0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "Now I wish it had won instead of the unholy abomination we have with Electron apps.", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": "tcl-lang.org", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://www.tcl-lang.org/", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Tcl/Tk"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 798389984, "item_id": 49899374, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49899374", "by": "bch", "date": "2026-09-29", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Tcl and Tk are fantastic", "excerpt": "> Kudo\u2019s to Mr Osterhout\u2019s long lived legacy Tcl and Tk are fantastic, and if this is where it ended, John Ousterhout would have secured his place in history - this is only 1 piece of his contributions, though - see too: * Log structured file system[0] * parallel Make[1] (Adam de Boor from Sprite project, not JO hisself) * RAFT consensus protocol[2] * Various notable teachings [3][4][5] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/w", "context": "", "use_case": "Scripting and GUI toolkit", "switched_from": "", "story": "Tcl/Tk 9.1"}, {"id": 761017681, "item_id": 47563605, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47563605", "by": "Shorel", "date": "2026-03-29", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Now I wish it had won instead of the unholy abomination we have with Electron apps.", "excerpt": "I used to dislike TCL/Tk because of the ugly toolkit and also language. Now I wish it had won instead of the unholy abomination we have with Electron apps.", "context": "", "use_case": "GUI toolkit", "switched_from": "", "story": "Undroidwish \u2013 a single-file, batteries-included Tcl/Tk binary for many platforms"}, {"id": 745126881, "item_id": 46570430, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46570430", "by": "anthk", "date": "2026-01-10", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Under GNU/Linux, the VB6 counterpart would be TCL/Tk+SQlite", "excerpt": "With GNU/Linux and BSD I just recompile. I can run old C stuff from the 90's with few flags. Under GNU/Linux, the VB6 counterpart would be TCL/Tk+SQlite, which would run nearly the same over almost 25-30 years. As a plus, I can run my code with any editor and the TCL/Tk dependencies will straightly run on both XP, Mac, BSD and GNU/Linux with no propietary chains ever, or worse, that Visual Studio monstruosity. A simp", "context": "", "use_case": "Cross-platform GUI apps", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft May Have Created the Slowest Windows in 25 Years with Windows 11"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 748260819, "item_id": 46766301, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46766301", "by": "Shorel", "date": "2026-01-26", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "TCL/TK looks ugly everywhere", "excerpt": "At this point I wish that there was some native alternative to the Web-based everything. wxWidgets is oldschool, QT has license issues, GTK looks so-so except on Linux, TCL/TK looks ugly everywhere. In the modern world we need some GPU accelerated GUI library. Something like the one used in SublimeText. But with BSD or MIT license of course. That would be much more interesting for me.", "context": "", "use_case": "native GUI toolkit", "switched_from": "", "story": "Web-based image editor modeled after Deluxe Paint"}]}], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["scripting and gui toolkit", "gui toolkit", "native gui toolkit", "cross-platform gui apps"], "compared": [{"slug": "sqlite", "name": "SQLite", "co": 9, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "fossil", "name": "Fossil", "co": 6, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [{"id": 798790274, "item_id": 49924392, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49924392", "by": "mistachkin", "date": "2026-10-01", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Tcl/Tk Maintainer", "excerpt": "Location: Manhattan, NYC. Role: Principal Software Engineer / Systems Architect. Contracts: Depends. Remote: Yes. Hybrid: Yes. Willing to relocate: Depends. Technologies: C/C++, C#, Win32, Linux, POSIX, SQL, etc. Projects: Tcl/Tk, Eagle, SQLite, System.Data.SQLite, Fossil SCM, Comdb2, etc. Interests: automation, cryptography, databases, developer tools & SDKs, distributed systems, (Internet) security, public key infr", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (October 2026)"}, {"id": 792422289, "item_id": 49526393, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49526393", "by": "mistachkin", "date": "2026-09-01", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Tcl/Tk Maintainer since 2002", "excerpt": "Location: Manhattan, NYC. Role: Principal Software Engineer / Systems Architect. Contracts: Depends. Remote: Yes. Hybrid: Yes. Willing to relocate: Depends. Technologies: C/C++, C#, Win32, Linux, POSIX, SQL, etc. Projects: Tcl/Tk, Eagle, SQLite, System.Data.SQLite, Fossil SCM, Comdb2, etc. Interests: automation, cryptography, databases, developer tools & SDKs, distributed systems, (Internet) security, public key infr", "context": "Principal Software Engineer / Systems Architect", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (September 2026)"}, {"id": 786548816, "item_id": 49159301, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49159301", "by": "mistachkin", "date": "2026-08-03", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Tcl/Tk Maintainer ( https://w.sb/r/tcl )", "excerpt": "Location: Manhattan, NYC. Role: Principal Software Engineer / Systems Architect. Contracts: Depends. Remote: Yes. Hybrid: Yes. Willing to relocate: Depends. Technologies: C/C++, C#, Win32, Linux, POSIX, SQL, etc. Projects: Tcl/Tk, Eagle, SQLite, System.Data.SQLite, Fossil SCM, Comdb2, etc. Interests: automation, cryptography, databases, developer tools & SDKs, distributed systems, (Internet) security, public key infr", "context": "Tcl/Tk maintainer", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (August 2026)"}, {"id": 779991856, "item_id": 48749491, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48749491", "by": "mistachkin", "date": "2026-07-01", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "a Tcl/Tk Maintainer since 2002", "excerpt": "Location: Manhattan, NYC. Role: Principal Software Engineer / Systems Architect. Contracts: Depends. Remote: Yes. Hybrid: Yes. Willing to relocate: Depends. Technologies: C/C++, C#, Win32, Linux, POSIX, SQL, etc. Projects: Tcl/Tk, Eagle, SQLite, System.Data.SQLite, Fossil SCM, Comdb2, etc. Profile: https://w.sb/r/profile Manifesto: https://w.sb/r/manifesto -- Please read this manifesto before reaching out. It nicely ", "context": "Tcl/Tk maintainer since 2002", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (July 2026)"}, {"id": 767654592, "item_id": 47978412, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47978412", "by": "mistachkin", "date": "2026-05-01", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Tcl/Tk Maintainer", "excerpt": "Location: Manhattan, NYC. Contracts: Yes. Remote: Yes. Hybrid: Yes. Willing to relocate: No. Technologies: C/C++, C#, Win32, Linux, POSIX, SQL, etc. Projects: Tcl/Tk, Eagle, SQLite, System.Data.SQLite, Fossil SCM, Comdb2, etc. Profile: https://w.sb/r/profile Manifesto: https://w.sb/r/manifesto Affiliations: Tcl/Tk Maintainer ( https://w.sb/r/tcl ), Formerly SQLite Development Team ( https://w.sb/r/sqlite ) Side Proje", "context": "job seeker; Tcl/Tk maintainer; formerly on SQLite dev team", "use_case": "Maintains it", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (May 2026)"}, {"id": 755538272, "item_id": 47221142, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47221142", "by": "mistachkin", "date": "2026-03-02", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Tcl/Tk Maintainer", "excerpt": "Location: Manhattan, NYC. Contracts: Yes. Remote: Yes. Hybrid: Yes. Willing to relocate: No. Technologies: C/C++, C#, Win32, Linux, POSIX, SQL, etc. Projects: Tcl/Tk, Eagle, SQLite, System.Data.SQLite, Fossil SCM, Comdb2, etc. Interests: automation, cryptography, databases, developer tools & SDKs, distributed systems, (Internet) security, public key infrastructure, runtimes, sandboxing, scripting languages, testing, ", "context": "Tcl/Tk maintainer; formerly on SQLite dev team", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (March 2026)"}], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50320003", "title": "Common Desktop Environment available now as open-source", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49922568", "title": "Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (October 2026)", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49896712", "title": "Tcl/Tk 9.1", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49522896", "title": "Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (September 2026)", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49156682", "title": "Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (August 2026)", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48747975", "title": "Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (July 2026)", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"compare": 1}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {"recommend": 1, "warn": 1}, "2026-02": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-10": {"neutral": 1}}, "versions": [], "version_unnamed": 0, "family_ref": null, "runs_on": null, "lines": [], "quotes": [{"id": 805123568, "item_id": 50320223, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50320223", "by": "DonHopkins", "date": "2026-10-31", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I prefer TCL/Tk Bisque, which had its own command, t-shirt, and cult:", "excerpt": "I prefer TCL/Tk Bisque, which had its own command, t-shirt, and cult: https://wiki.tcl-lang.org/page/tk_bisque The Tk command tk_bisque, documented in http://www.purl.org/tcl/home/man/tcl8.5/TkCmd/palette.htm is implemented in the Tk library file palette.tcl. https://wiki.tcl-lang.org/page/bisque \"X11 bisque - also known as 'Ousterhout beige' - was for a long time the default color of Tk GUI's.\" The \"bisque is beauti", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Common Desktop Environment available now as open-source"}, {"id": 798389984, "item_id": 49899374, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49899374", "by": "bch", "date": "2026-09-29", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Tcl and Tk are fantastic", "excerpt": "> Kudo\u2019s to Mr Osterhout\u2019s long lived legacy Tcl and Tk are fantastic, and if this is where it ended, John Ousterhout would have secured his place in history - this is only 1 piece of his contributions, though - see too: * Log structured file system[0] * parallel Make[1] (Adam de Boor from Sprite project, not JO hisself) * RAFT consensus protocol[2] * Various notable teachings [3][4][5] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/w", "context": "", "use_case": "Scripting and GUI toolkit", "switched_from": "", "story": "Tcl/Tk 9.1"}, {"id": 761017681, "item_id": 47563605, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47563605", "by": "Shorel", "date": "2026-03-29", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Now I wish it had won instead of the unholy abomination we have with Electron apps.", "excerpt": "I used to dislike TCL/Tk because of the ugly toolkit and also language. Now I wish it had won instead of the unholy abomination we have with Electron apps.", "context": "", "use_case": "GUI toolkit", "switched_from": "", "story": "Undroidwish \u2013 a single-file, batteries-included Tcl/Tk binary for many platforms"}, {"id": 751576292, "item_id": 46973518, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46973518", "by": "DonHopkins", "date": "2026-02-11", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "later port it to X11/TCL/Tk", "excerpt": "When I ported the Mac version of SimCity to Unix using NeWS/HyperLook for the front end, I naturally had to split it into and engine (the C simulator back-end \"client\"), and the user interface (the PostScript/NeWS/HyperLook front-end \"server\"), and define a network messaging interface (API) between them. https://donhopkins.medium.com/hyperlook-nee-hypernews-nee-goodnews-99f411e58ce4 That made it a lot easier to later", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Micropolis/SimCity Clone in Emacs Lisp"}, {"id": 748260819, "item_id": 46766301, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46766301", "by": "Shorel", "date": "2026-01-26", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "TCL/TK looks ugly everywhere", "excerpt": "At this point I wish that there was some native alternative to the Web-based everything. wxWidgets is oldschool, QT has license issues, GTK looks so-so except on Linux, TCL/TK looks ugly everywhere. In the modern world we need some GPU accelerated GUI library. Something like the one used in SublimeText. But with BSD or MIT license of course. That would be much more interesting for me.", "context": "", "use_case": "native GUI toolkit", "switched_from": "", "story": "Web-based image editor modeled after Deluxe Paint"}, {"id": 745126881, "item_id": 46570430, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46570430", "by": "anthk", "date": "2026-01-10", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Under GNU/Linux, the VB6 counterpart would be TCL/Tk+SQlite", "excerpt": "With GNU/Linux and BSD I just recompile. I can run old C stuff from the 90's with few flags. Under GNU/Linux, the VB6 counterpart would be TCL/Tk+SQlite, which would run nearly the same over almost 25-30 years. As a plus, I can run my code with any editor and the TCL/Tk dependencies will straightly run on both XP, Mac, BSD and GNU/Linux with no propietary chains ever, or worse, that Visual Studio monstruosity. A simp", "context": "", "use_case": "Cross-platform GUI apps", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft May Have Created the Slowest Windows in 25 Years with Windows 11"}, {"id": 733407168, "item_id": 45837948, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45837948", "by": "anthk", "date": "2025-11-06", "version": null, "stance": "compare", "quote": "It might not be on par with TCL/Tk polishing", "excerpt": "It had been recently improved. It might not be on par with TCL/Tk polishing, but it can do lots of stuff. https://www.red-lang.org/ The main issue is the lack of self-bootstrapping.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Radiant Computer"}]}