The term '''superset''' is an word intended to convey the idea of ''more than the original'' in a manner opposite the meaning of '''subset''' being ''some portion less than the original''.

The term '''superset''' within the Tcl community has been used in relationship to programs such as [expect], bltsh from [BLT], tcl from [TclX], and other ''all-in-one'' interpreters that have been created at times through Tcl's history. Before the [package] mechanism became available, one often found that a Tcl extension (aka package) author would include the steps within a Makefile to generate a uniquely named stand alone interpreter which statically linked at least the author's extension (and sometimes a variety of other extensions) into one program. This made it easy for users of Tcl to provide more functionality to a tcl program.

Since the addition of dynamic loading of code and the package mechanism, fewer of these specialty interpreters are maintained (a popular exception to this statement is, of course, [Tk]'s [wish]).

The stand-alone interpreter might be considered a ''superset'' of Tcl because not only did it include Tcl's commands, but it included additional commands. 



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