For me, using Perl+Tcl/Tk has following obvious advantages in comparision with perlTk:
- Perl<->Tcl/Tk bridge is lightweight, any misbehaviour is hidden is 70Kb of pure-perl Tcl::Tk code and 30Kb of Tcl bridge code;
perlTk is huge and really hard to maintain. It took really many efforts to switch to Unicode between versions Tk800.024 <->Tk804.027
- Most up-to-date Tcl/Tk could easily be used. Tcl-8.5 is really soon to come, and I already tried it from Perl.
- You can use Unicode GUI in Perl version 5.6.x, and perlTk lacks support for Unicode for 5.6.x.
I know, Unicode support is weak in 5.6.x, but sometimes you do not need Unicode, it is sometimes required to have GUI translated to another language.
- You have a much richier set of widgets, plus pure-Tcl widgets.
- It is the only way to have Perl+Tk GUI on WinCE devices.
perlTk is harder to port to another platform, and perlTk Unicode version is not ported to WinCE (only elder one).
See http://www.vkonovalov.ru/perlce-tcltk.htm as example.
- As a general rule, it is easier to maintain structured things. That said, Perl does its own evolving, and Tcl/Tk does its own.
Contrary, perlTk contains "Tk" and "Tix" mixed in it, and you do not know how old they are, plus some pure-Perl widgets that do not have Tcl/Tk counterpart, and perlTk documentation contains a lot of documentation rudiments that fixed in Tcl/Tk
- TIMTOWTDI is wider: you can do
$interpreter->Eval('pure-tcl-code-to-create-and-manipulate-widgets');
or use perlTk syntax
my $btn=$frame->Button(-text=>'Ok',-command=>sub{print 'ok'})->pack;
- beleive me or not, perlTk ate more memory and was slower to startup and redraw than Perl+Tcl/Tk for the same application...
Will provide some numbers if you're interesting
From the other side, using both languages at the same is harder to start (especially for newbies).
But looks to me as not a big problem, especially if you always stay in "perlTk" syntax, which is available.
I have almost no experience using SpecTcl, I tried to use SpecTix, but spent not enough time to become an expert there... Sorry.
update: a typo in version
Courage