There are several ways to execute Perl programs from Tcl applications. Most succinct is simply to apply Tcl's powerful exec in a command such as
exec my_program.pl
[Explain open, and other IPC, more generally.]
It's quick work in Tcl to code a
proc perl_interpret scripte { return [exec perl << [uplevel [list subst -novariables -noback $script]]] }
which allows one to write
set a 13 set b 79 puts [perl_interpret { $result = [set a] + [set b]; print "The sum is ", $result, ".\n"; }]
Tclperl is quite nice. So is the Perl widget, although in a much different way.