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# Epilogue

A short look on Tcl/Tk is worth the effort, no matter if XF

will be used or not. The boost in productivity is enormous. The first version of XF (which was my first Tcl/Tk program) was written in about 2-3 months. This version already contained almost all the basic functionality that is still part of XF .

Users reported that developing with XF tore down the wall between them and the X window system . It enabled them to develop complex user interfaces in a few days, without knowing anything about the internals of the X window system . Of course, a major reason for this is the easy handling of Tcl/Tk , but XF makes it even easier to work with Tcl/Tk . It is possible to switch between hand coding and developing with the user interface builder at any time. Experienced users who implement major parts of their applications by hand can still use XF for certain tasks.

There are a few restrictions when developing with XF . They should not affect the development. It's just that certain names should not be used for variables, procedures and widgets. And there are some conventions where directly inserted code has to be placed. Besides, it should be possible to write any application that can be written directly with Tcl/Tk under XF . The user can always switch between directly changing the application, and using XF to modify the application.

There is a growing number of XF users, and there are already commercial users of Tcl/Tk and XF . The reports of these users indicate that the concept and the implementation of XF are a good working base for the design and implementation of graphical interfaces, although there are some problems. The most important problem is that, as XF

and the application that is built are sharing the same interpreter, changes to the application causing errors may also cause problems with XF itself. The cause for this sensitivity is just the same flexibility that allows the implementation of XF . Without this flexibility XF would not be possible.

The current restriction of Tcl/Tk to the platform may be overcome in the future. In this case, XF would be available on alternative platforms (e.g. Windows running under ).

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