Scene: A run down shop at the end of a long, mostly deserted street. A cracked and weather-beaten sign, obviously from the mid-90's, hangs over a large boarded up window. It reads "Tcl and Tk Programming House and Support Group". The word "Tk" has been recently updated on the sign, and now is made up of a set of small shiny tiles of different colors, at stark contrast to the rest of the sign.
Inside, a number of generally older men shuffle around quietly, mumbling to themselves. Jeff Hobbs stands behind the counter near the front, slowly sipping from a stained coffee mug full of fine whisky. A small, half-empty bookshelf of dust-covered books is on the wall behind him.
All of a sudden, there is a loud noise, and a young, bright-eyed skinny college student tumbles down what looks like an oversized laundry chute, conspicuously located where most stores would have a door, and lands in the shop. He gets up, looks around and approaches Jeff at the counter, who looks up.
Newbie: Hi! I'm in computer science at the local university. My grandfather told me that I should learn Tcl and Tk because it'll allow me to do all kinds of cool stuff. But when I mention that to my friends at school, they all laugh at me and tell me that Tcl is totally obsolete and for losers. Now I'm worried! Is Tcl dying out?
Jeff sighs, and picks up a desk calendar from the shelf behind him. He looks down, quietly says "right on time", and puts a big check mark next to a handwritten note on the current day. He then makes another entry on the calendar three months later.
Larry Virden walks up from the back of the shop towards the young programmer.
Larry V.: I couldn't help overhearing your concerns. Don't you worry, Tcl and Tk are fully open source, so how can they die? There are copies of it everywhere, so it will last forever! It's indestructible!
Newbie: But what if nearly everyone stops using it?
Larry V.: As long as there's one programmer left in the world still working with it, Tcl will live on! And think of all the people running Eggdrop - Tcl is thriving!
Richard Suchenwirth pops his head briefly through a window.
Richard S.: You should see this cool AS/400 simulator I wrote in Tcl; here, it runs on my phone. All it took was one weekend!
Newbie: But what about web applications? That's really important today, and I don't hear much about Tcl.
Dave Welton, who's been working at a desk nearby, looks up. Around him are several Ruby and Rails books, a large stack of money from his clients, and a bunch of neat demos of Hecl that he's been having fun working on.
Dave: He does have a point. Tcl is a pretty nice language for web applications, especially embedded things and where you're deploying to customers, but it does seem to have fallen behind for a lot of mainstream uses. Tools like Rails do make a lot of common things pretty easy.
An angry voice from the back screams at Dave: You idiot! What do you know about web programming and Tcl anyway? Haven't you heard of the Tcl Apache project? And there are other web servers you know!
On cue, two groups of hackers in the back line up on either side of the shop and face each other. One group repeatedly yells "AOLserver!" at the other, who repeatedly respond with "tclhttpd!".
Jeff: Besides, if we had a tool like Rails it would run a heck of a lot faster than in Ruby, and I18N would work right. Sure, we don't have something like Rails, but it's just a small matter of programming, I'm sure I could put it together in a weekend.
Richard S. (popping his head in again): Me too!
Jean-Claude Wippler, who has just finished an enormous plate of sushi, wanders over.
Jean-Claude: Besides, Tcl gives you all kinds of novel choices for databases for your web application or anything else. And look here, I've just rewritten Metakit again using Simula-67. Makes the Tcl binding much cleaner and more straightforward, and that'll certainly be easier to get compiled than C++.
Jeff: (groans)
Newbie: That's interesting. I'd heard that SQLite even had a Tcl binding, and that's the coolest thing I've ever seen.
Richard Hipp, who's been frantically bouncing around the room the entire time, steers himself in that direction.
Richard H.: Well gosh darn, nobody will believe me when I tell them that I really love Tcl, and that SQLite was really made for Tcl. But they never listen to me, they're just too busy shoving money in my face to do work for them. Boy it's tough.
Jean-Claude: Hey, I just got Metakit working on this vacuum tube I found. This time I know I've got it!
Richard S.: Hey, last weekend I used Tcl to turn a vacuum tube into a space shuttle. How cool is that?
Newbie: Wow, there certainly do seem to be a lot of neat things that people are doing with Tcl. It must be really useful. I don't see it on job postings a lot though. What kind of jobs do you guys get?
Jeff: You'd be surprised how many companies use Tcl internally, especially for things like testing and internal tool development. But I can't tell you about any of them or I'd be shot.
Someone else pipes up: Besides, a lot of us just start our own companies. It's not like we could get hired anywhere since we're not up on all the latest buzzwords. Hey, had you heard of this brand new language that's just come out called Java?
Dave: But it would help a bit if a few more people were doing some more marketing. That web site really needs some work.
Richard S.: No need, everything is on the wiki. What more do you want?
Larry V.: Exactly, it's fine, what difference does it make? And it works with Lynx!
Richard S.: Did I mention the weekend when I rewrote Lynx in Tcl but made it 3D?
Newbie: That's pretty cool! So what are you guys working on now? What's next for Tcl?
Jeff: Well, we've got some pretty cool stuff - an improved, modern user interface and a brand new object system. I think it's the 100th object system done in Tcl; how many languages can say that? So as soon as Donal finishes, we'll be ready to release.
Donal (from a small cellar in the basement, where he's been locked): Help! Let me out of here!
Joe English is sitting in another corner, chipping away and polishing a gigantic pile of ceramic tiles.
Joe: You know, this is all great and such, but if anyone else wanted to help out, that'd be okay!
Jeff: So yeah, the next release should be any day now.
Larry McVoy pops down the chute where the front door should be, carrying a long pointy stick.
Newbie: Hey, what's with the stick?
Larry M.: I need it to go around poking all those free software weenies in the eye. Suckers. You should have seen Stallman after I got him last week. It was hilarious! He hasn't been around here again lately has he?
Everyone: No, thank god.
Larry M.: By the way, I hate to keep mentioning it, but if you guys would just put a front door on this shop like people are used to instead of the stupid laundry chute that people have to use to get in, you might get a few more people coming through.
Gerald Lester offers Larry a bottle of hot sauce, and turns on the neon sign he wears on his ballcap saying "ask me about the oil platform... please!"
Gerald: You know Larry, I think laundry chutes are kinda nice.
A large box comes flying down the laundry chute and lands with a thud.
Newbie: Wow, that's a pretty big box? What's in that?
Jeff: Just today's batch of "thank you" cards, from all the people who are happily using Tcl to get their job done, and not worrying about whether it's dying or not, or caring how it compares with Ruby or Python or Java or whatever. They seem to think that it's nice having a choice of tools out there, and if Tcl works for them, they're happy.
Newbie: I think I get it now. You know, I've learned something today. Sure, there are lots of different tools out there, and their popularity goes up and down. Some get a lot of attention for particular things. Others may not be as flashy but get the job done, and may be better for a different set of problems. If we spent less time worrying about who was better and who sucked, and actually learned from each other, we'd make life better for a lot of people. It's not so important to prove you're right and the other guy is wrong. Maybe we could all work together and make it easier for everyone to do their jobs, rather than wasting time arguing with each other.
Larry M.: Yeah, like that's going to happen.
Fade out.
Scene: a nice office, far far away. John Ousterhout is sitting in front of a row of video screens showing images from hidden cameras all around the shop. A group of TV executives is watching closely.
John: See, I knew all along the only way we'd make money from Tcl is by getting all these technical guys in one spot and making a reality TV series out of it!
Michael Schlenker wrote: > si...@whiteowl.co.uk schrieb: > > Eckhard Lehmann wrote: > >>> 2. One of the reasons for the bad marketing is, IMHO, the lack of a real > >>> roadmap. Tcl 8.5 and some fantasies about 9.0 are around since... when was > >>> Methusalem born? But although we can read here about whats going on and why > >>> things need so long (and please, I do not blame anyone of the core team, > >> There is a valid reason for that - and this is quality. Tcl stands for > >> API consistency and backwards compatibility, features that other > >> languages are not so aware of. And this justifies that things need > >> longer, IMO.
> > I agree that this justifies the longer release cycle but surely that > > makes it more important to have a roadmap and a plan.
> > 8.5 is going to be packed full of goodies which I for one an looking > > forward to very much. Given how long it has been gestating I think that > > some direction - contents and timetable should be put in place. It will > > probably slip but at least it would give focus to the remaining effort.
> The main problem with a timetable is that there are a lot of > dependencies. While members of the TCT do manage the releases for > Tcl/Tk, they depend on external contributions for some things (or would > probably like to have more external contributions).
> Just look at a lot of TIP's which target 8.5 (but won't probably make it > because no implementation is done), lots of nice things, but somehow the > proposal has been dumped with the TCT and no real persistent action > followed. Anybody may adopt those and provide an implementation and push > for a vote.
</snip>
> And so on..., look at the drafts at the TIP site.
> If _you_ want any of this to happen in Tcl 8.5 / Tk 8.5 get something > done, adopt a TIP write a ref implementation and push the TCT to vote on > the subject.
> Michael
I wasn't aware that TIPs got approved if they didn't have some sort of reference implementation. Surely we aren't now in the situation that 8.5 is being held up because a TIP that was approved for 8.5 doesn't have an implementor. Or are you saying that all TIPs approved for 8.5 have to be implemented before it is released. If that is the case (I'll be suprised if it is) it would be nice if someone in the TCT could summarize with a list of those TIPs and perhaps a statement that no more TIPs will be accepted for 8.5.
As it happend I did want something done and so I produced a TIP which, after discussion was approved. I did the implementation work and the result has been sitting in the 8.5 tree for more than a year. If 8.5 isn't defined then no amount of people working on it is going to produce a release. There will always be new nice-to-have TIPs being added. Without the TCT saying what the requirement for 8.5 is and giving a definitive list of TIPs and bug-fixes for 8.5 there is no process in place to release 8.5 on any timescale.
Another point that IMHO is worth making is that tcl is a community effort. Most people give up some of their free time in order to contribute to a language they like and believe in (whatever that means!). I know that my own contribution is very small, but personally I find that it can be very demotivating if having spent your free time implemeting a TIP you then see your contribution sitting in an unreleased branch of the code for years without any real prospect of release.
>> Peter Dalgaard wrote: >> [...] >>> ActiveTcl, for all its virtues, is a single-platform proprietary item. >> What do you mean by this? ActiveTcl is available on 6 different >> platforms, as far as I can see (AIX, HP-UX, Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, >> and Windows according to >> http://www.activestate.com/Products/ActiveTcl/?mp=1). I use it on 3 of >> those myself.
> Yes, should have checked that. However, the point was never that it is > not available, but that it is not what e.g. a standard Fedora or SuSE > user will have in hand.
Standard Fedora or SUSE user..., if you add Debian in it gets absurd. The main thing you have with a standard user is inconsistency.
Ok, if someone packaged up an app or deb as an rpm for a specific distribution i may be lucky that it works. This is usually the case for most apps included with the distribution, but not always. (example: Eclipse fails miserably on SUSE 10.1 x86_64 because the java-gtk binding is only provided as a 32-bit version...).
Unless you run exactly the distro your building packages for, your doomed for failure, due to the non-stable glibc and kernel apis on Linux. Try building anything that works on a redhat 5.x to Fedora Core 4 System without recompile.
Or try to get a decent Firefox for a Pentium I System on Linux, fun stuff, need to recompile everything.
Tcl has the benefit that it is easier to ship your custom Tcl install without the need for system wide installation files and things, then with other langs.
>>> What it provides is not usable under e.g. Linux, or even on Windows if >>> you want to bundle Tcl/Tk with other software.
>> Again, what do you mean by "not usable under ... Linux"? I use >> ActiveTcl under Linux almost daily. ActiveTcl is an effective >> "batteries included" distribution for end-users.
> I meant that you cannot assume that it is there.
Right. But thats a similar situation for many other packages. I'myself find me currently cursing distributors that they missed package x or y, which is absolutley critical, or that they bundled only the static lib or only the dynamic lib or an old version or whatever.
>> Bundling/redistribution is a separate issue.
> No. It's _the_ _reason_ you cannot assume the presence of ActiveTcl. > ActiveTcl is something that you need to tell the end-user to go > download (and install and maintain by nonstandard methods, as far as I > can tell). On Windows, this is just "business as usual" - you also > need to tell people where to get a C compiler, perl, emacs, younameit, > but on the modern Unix-alikes things are usually done differently.
As i said above, the shrink wrap approach on modern unix-alikes does not work (apart from OS X, where it might work). Take a look at distrowatch, it list more than a thousand Linux distributions, each with its own little differences in packaging guidelines, package locations and so on. Add the BSD's and other OSs to the picture and things don't get brighter. Not even the widely used rpm is maintained, SUSE and Redhat are working from private, diverging forks of the code base.
So if you want complete Tcl package covering in many more distros just start packaging things up:
I'm sure others could add the appropriate places for the distro of your choice.
Its not an impossible task for the extensions following the TEA build system, as Daniel Steffen demonstrated with his Apple OS X bundling of Tcl/Tk and comments from Jeff Hobbs indicate similar things for ActiveTcl, but its work to be done. And work that has to be done again for each new distro release, each new extension release. Most Tcl extensions are actually quite easy to build (there are exceptions of cause, lots of em, as always).
Maybe I'm ranting a bit too much, but blaming ActiveTcl for faults of Linux distributors is a bit of mark.
Michael
P.S. I personally think Reinhard Max does a great job for SUSE, packaging Tcl, although i would like to have mysqltcl and xotcl and dict added to the list of available packages.
Mark Roseman wrote: > Scene: A run down shop at the end of a long, mostly deserted street. A > cracked and weather-beaten sign, obviously from the mid-90's, hangs over > a large boarded up window. It reads "Tcl and Tk Programming House and > Support Group". The word "Tk" has been recently updated on the sign, > and now is made up of a set of small shiny tiles of different colors, at > stark contrast to the rest of the sign. > ...
> Scene: A run down shop at the end of a long, mostly deserted street. A > cracked and weather-beaten sign, obviously from the mid-90's, hangs over > a large boarded up window. It reads "Tcl and Tk Programming House and > Support Group". The word "Tk" has been recently updated on the sign, > and now is made up of a set of small shiny tiles of different colors, at > stark contrast to the rest of the sign.
Neil Madden <n...@cs.nott.ac.uk> writes: > Peter Dalgaard wrote: > > Neil Madden <n...@cs.nott.ac.uk> writes:
> >> Peter Dalgaard wrote: > >> [...] > >>> ActiveTcl, for all its virtues, is a single-platform proprietary item. > >> What do you mean by this? ActiveTcl is available on 6 different > >> platforms, as far as I can see (AIX, HP-UX, Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, > >> and Windows according to > >> http://www.activestate.com/Products/ActiveTcl/?mp=1). I use it on 3 of > >> those myself. > > Yes, should have checked that. However, the point was never that it > > is > > not available, but that it is not what e.g. a standard Fedora or SuSE > > user will have in hand.
> I think SuSE do actually ship many/most of the extensions that > ActiveTcl contains as part of their standard distro. No idea about > Fedora. But, in what way is the fact that ActiveTcl is not available > everywhere a valid criticism of ActiveTcl itself?
Ah, read more closely (possibly between the lines): I am not criticizing ActiveTcl, but the fact that it was being used as an argument for not making something an "action item". I was pointing out that ActiveTcl is not for everyone, and it is not reasonable to rely on their services.
> Red Hat and SuSE > *could* adopt ActiveTcl as a standard set of extensions and bundle > their own versions.
Yes, but see below.
> I think it's a bit much to criticise ActiveState -- who are doing the > Tcl community a great favour in distributing a *free* QA'ed batteries > included distro on many popular platforms -- on the grounds that they > can't guarantee that ActiveTcl or equivalent will be installed on > every machine you need to run on.
(It is "free" as in beer, not as in software. For free software applications, the no-redistribution requirement becomes a real problem.)
> Nobody could possibly guarantee > that. Even if the TCT blessed a standard set of extensions for distros > to include, you would still have to wait many years before any kind of > guarantee could be made (and even that is not very likely).
I think you're being overly pessimistic there. Actively encouraging distribution of particular extensions could go quite a long way. Prepackaged BI-style sources help too. Even better if there is some activity checking whether extensions break upon new iterations of the Tcl core.
> >>> What it provides is not usable under e.g. Linux, or even on Windows if > >>> you want to bundle Tcl/Tk with other software.
> >> Again, what do you mean by "not usable under ... Linux"? I use > >> ActiveTcl under Linux almost daily. ActiveTcl is an effective > >> "batteries included" distribution for end-users. > > I meant that you cannot assume that it is there.
> Again, this is hardly the same as "not usable".
For me, it is, actually. But please, don't take it in the derogatory sense; of course it is perfectly usable for many people.
> >> Bundling/redistribution is a separate issue. > > No. It's _the_ _reason_ you cannot assume the presence of ActiveTcl. > > ActiveTcl is something that you need to tell the end-user to go > > download (and install and maintain by nonstandard methods, as far as I > > can tell). On Windows, this is just "business as usual" - you also > > need to tell people where to get a C compiler, perl, emacs, younameit, > > but on the modern Unix-alikes things are usually done differently.
> What exactly is the problem, again? Most modern Unix-alikes (Mac OS X, > SuSE etc) seem to come with Tcl/Tk and many/most of the extensions > that are in ActiveTcl.
The mainstream linuxen seem to be getting there (it used to be a bigger problem). I'm less sure about the older Unixen: Solaris, HP-UX, IRIX et al.. Finding out which extensions are available on which platforms that is still messy.
> As you say, on Windows it is fair enough to > just ask users to download ActiveTcl.
(Actually, we have chosen not to do so and ship with a self-compiled version of Tcl/Tk core on Windows.)
> So what is the problem, and what > is your proposed solution to it?
I just don't want the development to be impeded by the redistribution policy of a private company.
-- O__ ---- Peter Dalgaard ุster Farimagsgade 5, Entr.B c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics PO Box 2099, 1014 Cph. K (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen Denmark Ph: (+45) 35327918 ~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalga...@biostat.ku.dk) FAX: (+45) 35327907
> Michael Schlenker wrote: >> si...@whiteowl.co.uk schrieb: >>> Eckhard Lehmann wrote: >>>>> 2. One of the reasons for the bad marketing is, IMHO, the lack of a real >>>>> roadmap. Tcl 8.5 and some fantasies about 9.0 are around since... when was >>>>> Methusalem born? But although we can read here about whats going on and why >>>>> things need so long (and please, I do not blame anyone of the core team, >>>> There is a valid reason for that - and this is quality. Tcl stands for >>>> API consistency and backwards compatibility, features that other >>>> languages are not so aware of. And this justifies that things need >>>> longer, IMO.
>>> I agree that this justifies the longer release cycle but surely that >>> makes it more important to have a roadmap and a plan.
>>> 8.5 is going to be packed full of goodies which I for one an looking >>> forward to very much. Given how long it has been gestating I think that >>> some direction - contents and timetable should be put in place. It will >>> probably slip but at least it would give focus to the remaining effort.
>> The main problem with a timetable is that there are a lot of >> dependencies. While members of the TCT do manage the releases for >> Tcl/Tk, they depend on external contributions for some things (or would >> probably like to have more external contributions).
>> Just look at a lot of TIP's which target 8.5 (but won't probably make it >> because no implementation is done), lots of nice things, but somehow the >> proposal has been dumped with the TCT and no real persistent action >> followed. Anybody may adopt those and provide an implementation and push >> for a vote.
> </snip>
>> And so on..., look at the drafts at the TIP site.
>> If _you_ want any of this to happen in Tcl 8.5 / Tk 8.5 get something >> done, adopt a TIP write a ref implementation and push the TCT to vote on >> the subject.
> I wasn't aware that TIPs got approved if they didn't have some sort of > reference implementation.
They usually get not voted upon, but they are around and many of those TIPs are good ideas that should be implemented. But it is an illusion to think: Oh, there is a TIP, so someone else will do the work, and i don't have to do anything myself to get all those goodies.
> Surely we aren't now in the situation that > 8.5 is being held up because a TIP that was approved for 8.5 doesn't > have an implementor. Or are you saying that all TIPs approved for 8.5 > have to be implemented before it is released.
No. Its just there are lots of 'would be nice to have' TIPs, but no one moves them really forward.
In article <mark-9633C1.12204925092...@nntp.aioe.org>, Mark Roseman <m...@markroseman.com> wrote:
>Scene: A run down shop at the end of a long, mostly deserted street. A
Hehehehehehehe....
>John: See, I knew all along the only way we'd make money from Tcl is by >getting all these technical guys in one spot and making a reality TV >series out of it!
^ | ---------------------------------------------------------- | V
sas...@gmail.com writes: > I used to be very active in Tcl/Tk programming back in 2001. I was just > trying to get back into it and I started looking around but couldn't > find much recent development (other than work at ActiveState). I found > the roadmap for tcltk 9.0 on www.tcl.tk being promised for 2003 > specially disturbing! How worried should I be about tcl/tk's future?
Not very, I think. There's no particular reason to believe that it's any less useful than it was before.
I think there's good reason to believe that it has less impact than before, simply because the various niches ("scripting language", "easily extensible language", "cross platform scripting language", "easily learned language", etc.) have a lot more competition nowadays.
And many people find another language works better for what they want to do, whereas not so long ago they'd have chosen Tcl (because nothing else qualified).
Neil Madden wrote: >> What it provides is not usable under e.g. Linux, or even on Windows if >> you want to bundle Tcl/Tk with other software.
> Again, what do you mean by "not usable under ... Linux"? I use ActiveTcl > under Linux almost daily. ActiveTcl is an effective "batteries included" > distribution for end-users. Bundling/redistribution is a separate issue.
I would bet good money that the relation of Tcl installations to ActiveTcl installations on Linux is around the order of 1000/1. There's something terribly short-sighted in that, along the lines of "we'll only give you a good Tcl installation if you ask for it". Ruby, PHP and Python have the sense to give you something much more useful than Tcl in terms of libraries, out of the box.
Donal K. Fellows wrote: >> Tcl/Tk needs better marketing. And good articles are a part of this. > You're absolutely right here, but I'm terrible at doing this sort of > thing (and I've been up to my eyeballs in pay-work for most of the past > year too).
This is the real problem with waning popularity. It's difficult to get hired to work exclusively on what you want (I don't think the Python or Ruby guys work on their languages full time), but when most (some/a significant portion) of the core team doesn't even get to use Tcl in their day jobs, that's a warning sign.
Stephan Kuhagen wrote: > 2. One of the reasons for the bad marketing is, IMHO, the lack of a real > roadmap. Tcl 8.5 and some fantasies about 9.0 are around since... when was > Methusalem born? But although we can read here about whats going on and why > things need so long (and please, I do not blame anyone of the core team, > because I love Tcl and so I love, what they have done with and for Tcl in > the past), the implicit message to the outside world is, that Tcl has > simply stopped evolving somewhen in the late 90's.
At the risk of stepping on toes, I think in some ways that the core team hasn't really filled Dr. Ousterhout's shoes. I don't know if the problem is that having a 'benevolent dictator' is necessary, or if the TCT simply hasn't been up to the task of not only hacking on the code, but representing it as well.
JO got invited to conferences. The TCT is completely absent from the open source scene. I mean, they might as well be herding yaks in Mongolia for all the visibility they give the language in the "buzzy" circles that matter for marketing things to future generations of geeks.
> convince, that Tcl is worth a look... Where is the image manipulation > framework for Tcl? TclMagick was a good start, but...
Ok, this one involves me. But what?
> Tcl's community also needs refreshment from new and young programmers who > brings life to the community.
Yep. But it is invisible to them....argh!
> For example in the Python (again...) > newsgroup there are many postings starting with "I'm a newbie, please > help..." - You might think, that those people are not a big help in > developing a language anyway, so there is no reason to miss them. But they > are: because they will be good programmers in the future, they learn Python > instead of Tcl and they will later contribute to the development of the > language and they will write cool scripts and apps. And everybody who sees > those cool extensions or apps will ask: wow, what's it made with? And the > answer then is not Tcl, which again is one step toward oblivion.
si...@whiteowl.co.uk wrote: > I wasn't aware that TIPs got approved if they didn't have some sort of > reference implementation.
We don't usually do it. We've learned to not do that.
> Surely we aren't now in the situation that > 8.5 is being held up because a TIP that was approved for 8.5 doesn't > have an implementor. Or are you saying that all TIPs approved for 8.5 > have to be implemented before it is released. If that is the case (I'll > be suprised if it is) it would be nice if someone in the TCT could > summarize with a list of those TIPs and perhaps a statement that no > more TIPs will be accepted for 8.5.
There's a bit of a hold-up for a couple of TIPs that we want for strategic reasons (Tile and OO) but we won't hold up for anything else. Heck, we won't wait very long for even the current blockers.
There will (probably) be an announcement of the date of the 8.5 feature freeze at (or, if we're unlucky, shortly after) the Tcl Conference. Consider things to be slushy now. :-) I will not preempt that announcement.
Once we've frozen, the Tcl maintainers will focus on trying to get the bug count down and the execution speed up. Since 8.5 is in a much better state than 8.4 was at an equivalent stage, I'd hope that this period would be shorter. (8.4 had an excruciatingly long beta.)
Peter Dalgaard wrote: > I just don't want the development to be impeded by the redistribution > policy of a private company.
I understand the specific issue to be fixed from the next release of ActiveTcl; we (the good citizens of c.l.t) persuaded Jeff that the license wasn't serving ActiveState's best interest as it stood.
"Donal K. Fellows" <donal.k.fell...@man.ac.uk> writes:
> Peter Dalgaard wrote: > > I just don't want the development to be impeded by the redistribution > > policy of a private company.
> I understand the specific issue to be fixed from the next release of > ActiveTcl; we (the good citizens of c.l.t) persuaded Jeff that the > license wasn't serving ActiveState's best interest as it stood.
Cool...
-- O__ ---- Peter Dalgaard ุster Farimagsgade 5, Entr.B c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics PO Box 2099, 1014 Cph. K (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen Denmark Ph: (+45) 35327918 ~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalga...@biostat.ku.dk) FAX: (+45) 35327907
>> 2. One of the reasons for the bad marketing is, IMHO, the lack of a real >> roadmap. Tcl 8.5 and some fantasies about 9.0 are around since... when >> was >> Methusalem born? But although we can read here about whats going on >> and why >> things need so long (and please, I do not blame anyone of the core team, >> because I love Tcl and so I love, what they have done with and for Tcl in >> the past), the implicit message to the outside world is, that Tcl has >> simply stopped evolving somewhen in the late 90's.
> At the risk of stepping on toes, I think in some ways that the core team > hasn't really filled Dr. Ousterhout's shoes. I don't know if the > problem is that having a 'benevolent dictator' is necessary, or if the > TCT simply hasn't been up to the task of not only hacking on the code, > but representing it as well.
we ARE a bunch of old friendly uncles as has just been narrated elsewhere. Tcl does not even have a single parent in contrast to perl and python, ruby:I don't know my way around ruby.
This has to some extent (drawn as a different picture) the taste of starwars, jedi knights and young padavans.
To make the comparison: the star wars universe still has three episodes open ( and in the future of the existent episodes at that)
David N. Welton wrote: > This is the real problem with waning popularity. It's difficult to get > hired to work exclusively on what you want (I don't think the Python or > Ruby guys work on their languages full time), but when most (some/a > significant portion) of the core team doesn't even get to use Tcl in > their day jobs, that's a warning sign.
Hah. It was just a horrible project crunch caused by being more than a little bit over ambitious elsewhere (and the horrendous state of some Java tooling for web-services). Even if I'd been able to do it all in Tcl, I'd still have had near zero time for Tcl core hacking for 9 months. It was just that sort of year. Over now. :-)
Stephan Kuhagen wrote: > ... > There should be much faster development to catch up with recent developments > in other parts of the world. I know, there are things going on, but they > are going on in half darkness, effectively hidden to the outside world. OO > should be part of the language,
This is what 8.5 has been held up for.
> multithreading (for me) is even more important
That has been there for a long time.
> a modern GUI binding (Tk is cool in its simplicity, but it's so
> much outdated...) or toolkit
Have you looked at Tile, which is also part of 8.5
> a complete and comprehensive standard library > is needed (as integral part of the core language and not as an add on) to > give the programmer the tools she needs to get the every day things quick > and concentrate on the real problems.
So you don't want it to be like JAVA, Perl, Python, Fortran, Pascal, ...
> I do not agree, that performance is > such a problem as it is stated often when Tcl is compared to other > languages. But more and better support for programming environments and > debugging are needed desperately. I know, there are good tools from > ActiveState, but where is the standard Tcl-Plugin for Eclipse
There are two under development that I'm aware of (have been posted here in c.l.t in the last six months)
> or KDevelop (the IDE I like best).
Write it.
> For example in the Python (again...) > newsgroup there are many postings starting with "I'm a newbie, please > help..."
I saw at least six (or maybe more) of those here on c.l.t last week -- plus a lot more on the TkChat channel(s).
> ... And everybody who sees > those cool extensions or apps will ask: wow, what's it made with? And the > answer then is not Tcl, which again is one step toward oblivion.
Most people can care less what an application is written in, as long as it does what they want in a way that they want it to do it.
> ...
-- +--------------------------------+---------------------------------------+ | Gerald W. Lester | |"The man who fights for his ideals is the man who is alive." - Cervantes| +------------------------------------------------------------------------+
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