When [Don Libes] first created [Expect], he assumed other languages would incorporate bindings relatively quickly.  It's a testimony to the [package]'s polish that no substantial efforts were made with other language bindings for many years; it's because his Expect has seemed so perfect, not for any lack of need other languages have.

By 2000, though, unripe Expect-like facilities were available for such languages as [Perl] and [Python].  In contrast to the situation for [Tk], other languages have '''not''' created Expect modules by linking against Don's libraries; instead, they've written "from scratch" in more language-specific fashion.

**Python**

Python has several Expect initiatives (just as it has a plethora of Web servers, GUI toolkits, and so on).  Most advanced appears to be the pure-Python Pexpect [http://sourceforge.net/projects/pexpect/].

**Perl**

Expect.pm [http://cpan.org/modules/by-module/Expect/]

**Ruby**

ruby-expect [http://raa.ruby-lang.org/list.rhtml?name=ruby-expect]

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How does the programming power of Tcl/Expect compare to that of the Expect modules of other languages?  This comparison is far more difficult to explain than might first appear; full understanding involves several subtleties.  Here are the highlights:
   * Tcl/Expect can do anything the others can do.
   * Tcl/Expect is more mature, and, in particular, better-behaved across a range of Unixes.
   * Tcl/Expect has exceptionally interesting and powerful channel-processing capabilities, and event-oriented ones in particular, that other Expects don't even attempt.  ''However'', only a small minority of Expect programmers ever use these.  In fact, many (''many'') programmers make no more use of Expect than they would of the corresponding [telnet] module (telnetlib for Python).

Don himself
[[...]]
writes on this question [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3521954/what-can-expect-do-that-pexpect-can-not-do] in response to "What is it that Expect can do that Pexpect can't".

[[More detail.]]
<<br>>
[[See essay on "[Most programmers don't know what Expect can do for them]".]]



Because of its channel abstraction, Expect can interact with multiple processes quite easily.  That has been more cumbersome or even infeasible with Expect extensions available for other languages.
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Summary:  Expect is generally "better" in the usual ways programmers understand that, compared to Expect-like modules for other languages, in:
   * the maturity of its [pty] management (there's a lot of OS-specific hair here);
   * the [interact] command
   * its facility with multiple managed processes or other I/O streams.
   * the book [BOOK Exploring Expect%|%Exploring Expect]
   * the on-line tutorials [[...]]
   * all the examples in the distribution and book









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