[Tutor] Three questions about Python (and bundled software) in general

[Alan Gauld]

Welcome back Tadey,

> What is Tkinter, and what is Tcl/Tk  ??
>
> For Tcl/Tk I imagine, from what I read in Alan tutorial, that Tcl/Tk
> is some sort of "foundation", kind of basis for "translating" to
> machine/binary code,

Not quite. Tcl is a completely separate programming language.
Tcl stands for "Tool Control Language" and Tk stands for "Toolkit".
The Tk toolkit is a set of programming objects that the Tcl programmer
can use to create GUI programs (with windows, menus etc).

Tkinter is a Python version of that same Tk toolkit. The Python code
inside Tkinter actually calls the Tcl/Tk code and that's why, for
Tkinter
to work, you also need the Tcl and Tk libraries installed.

> And for Thinkter, it says it is Python's GUI programming system.
> But what this actually means, how to interprete it to myself  ??

Tkinter is the set of Python commands you use to create GUI programs
using Python.

> As far as I know, IDLE is GUI for Python,

IDLE is a GUI program written using Tkinter. Technically IDLE is
an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for Python. Virtually
all programs that use Windows, menus etc ate GUI programs, IDLE
is one such. Unfortunately the Python installer insists on calling the
Start menu entry for IDLE (Python GUI) rather than (Python IDE).

Pyhonwin is another IDE but it is written using a different GUI
toolkit,
one which is Windows specific. One reason the Tk toolkit os so
popular is that programs written using it will work on Windows,
Macintosh, Unix and any other computers that can run Tcl. Since
Python also works on the same computers we can combine them
in the shape of Tkinter and write GUI programs that will run on
almost any computer.

> meaning some "programming system" for GUI programming
> (to program some GUI, and not "console/command line" program)

Exactly correct.

> Second, I have question, if anyone knows what could "corrupt" my
> Python (to be more precise - IDLE) installation. After
double-clicking
> on "idle.pyw", I get message that "tcl84.dll" is missing, and
re-installing
> product will help, but I am certain, I didn't delete this dll, nor
in Python
> directory, nor in %SystemRoot%\system32 directory ..

Sadly this error seems very common and it usually means that the
library
got deleted somehow (maybe by an over zealous uninstall program?)
Usually reinstalling Python fixes it.

Alan G
Author of the Learn to Program web tutor
http://www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/alan.gauld