15.3.2 Unix/Windows Portable Scripting Language

Another approach to Unix/Windows portability is to develop the program using a portable scripting language. An example of such a scripting language is Tcl/Tk(34). Programs written in Tcl/Tk will work on both Unix and Windows (and on the Apple Macintosh operating system as well, for that matter). Graphical programs will more or less follow the look and feel for the platform upon which they are run. Since Tcl/Tk was originally developed on Unix, graphical Tcl/Tk programs will typically not look quite right to experienced Windows users, but they will be usable and of reasonable quality. Other portable scripting languages are Perl, Python, and Guile.

One disadvantage of this approach is that scripting languages tend to be less efficient than straight C code, but it is often possible to recode important routines in C. Another disadvantage is the need to learn a new language, one which furthermore may not be well designed for large programming projects.