Preparing for Tcl/Tk 8.3.4
Jeffrey Hobbs
This is a pre-announcement for those that lurk and have open
issues that might be addressed in 8.3.4 to voice them now. You
can voice them on the newsgroup, but a better venue is in the
bug and patch database at
http://tcl.sourceforge.net/
The maintainers can obviously only address what they have time
for. If you have what you feel is an unsolved critical issue,
make sure there is a bug that very clearly addresses it, with
simple code sample (and always best if with a patch).
For those of you waiting on the next 8.4 release, it will be 8.4a4,
and a deadline is not yet set, but it will be before EOY.
--
Jeff Hobbs The Tcl Guy
Senior Developer http://www.ActiveState.com/
Tcl Support and Productivity Solutions
lvi...@yahoo.com
According to Jeffrey Hobbs <Je...@ActiveState.com>:
:There will be a Tcl/Tk 8.3.4 release before the end of the month.
:For those of you waiting on the next 8.4 release, it will be 8.4a4,
:and a deadline is not yet set, but it will be before EOY.
Could you summarize for clt what the outstanding issues are that remain
before releasing Tcl 8.4 ?
--
--
"I know of vanishingly few people ... who choose to use ksh." "I'm a minority!"
<URL: mailto:lvi...@cas.org> <URL: http://www.purl.org/NET/lvirden/>
Even if explicitly stated to the contrary, nothing in this posting
Jeffrey Hobbs
>
> According to Jeffrey Hobbs <Je...@ActiveState.com>:
> :There will be a Tcl/Tk 8.3.4 release before the end of the month.
>
> :For those of you waiting on the next 8.4 release, it will be 8.4a4,
> :and a deadline is not yet set, but it will be before EOY.
>
> Could you summarize for clt what the outstanding issues are that remain
> before releasing Tcl 8.4 ?
There is an up-port of a lot of Mac stuff that is only in the 8.3
branch. There is the accepted but not yet commited panedwindow
widget. There is the handling of adding itcl as a module in the
main distribution (TIP #50). lset awaits being created as well.
It should finally fix XIM on Windows to get the caret in the right
place (requires new callbacks in the widgets). XIM on Unix would
be good to. It needs an update of the encodings to handle the
locales more correctly, and recognize the IANA encoding names.
There are potential Windows Tk speedups. Henry Spencer has
promised an update to the RE sometime. The VFS needs to be
hammered on for stability. It needs to be purified again. There
is the Tk text widget enhancements to be added (TIP #26).
Shall I go on?
lvi...@yahoo.com
According to Jeffrey Hobbs <Je...@ActiveState.com>:
:> Could you summarize for clt what the outstanding issues are that remain
:> before releasing Tcl 8.4 ?
lots of good stuff...
:Shall I go on?
Yes, please do. I know that I (and quite a number that email me each
week) haven't figured out yet how to locate the latest versions of these
plans for Tcl and Tk's future.
Jeffrey Hobbs
>
> According to Jeffrey Hobbs <Je...@ActiveState.com>:
> :lvi...@yahoo.com wrote:
> :> Could you summarize for clt what the outstanding issues are that remain
> :> before releasing Tcl 8.4 ?
> :
> lots of good stuff...
>
> :Shall I go on?
>
> Yes, please do. I know that I (and quite a number that email me each
> week) haven't figured out yet how to locate the latest versions of these
> plans for Tcl and Tk's future.
It is a mix of features and known bugs listed at SourceForge,
ideas that have been approved or are near that based on TIPs,
and further issues that sit in my inbox (some old, some new).
It is harder to pin down a roadmap now than before, due to the
spread out load on other maintainers with various schedules.
I no longer do a majority of the work, and I can't expect to
create a schedule for others providing help in their spare time.
I too do this now as often in my spare time as not, as my job at
ActiveState focuses on Tcl-based products more than any direct
dedication to core development - aside from directed support
contracts.
I could say 8.4a4 next month, 8.4b1 (that means no more feature
creep) in January, 8.4b2/8.4.0 in Feb, but what if that misses
a major feature people were looking forward to, like the incr
Tcl module or new widgets?
Petasis George
What is XIM? I have seen it a few more times (especially in the vim
editor) but what it is and why is needed by tk?
George
Phil Dietz
> There is an up-port of a lot of Mac stuff that is only in the 8.3
> branch. There is the accepted but not yet commited panedwindow
> widget. There is the handling of adding itcl as a module in the
> main distribution (TIP #50). lset awaits being created as well.
> It should finally fix XIM on Windows to get the caret in the right
> place (requires new callbacks in the widgets). XIM on Unix would
> be good to. It needs an update of the encodings to handle the
> locales more correctly, and recognize the IANA encoding names.
> There are potential Windows Tk speedups. Henry Spencer has
> promised an update to the RE sometime. The VFS needs to be
> hammered on for stability. It needs to be purified again. There
> is the Tk text widget enhancements to be added (TIP #26).
>
> Shall I go on?
Can't you just Purify 8.4a3...and then release it if it passes ?
Adding XIM, MAC widgits, a new regexp engine, VFS, etc. seems like 8.5
material.
I've always wondered why TK and TCL are always releasd together.
Can't TK be split into it's own project with independent release dates
?
I think that would solve many problems.
Once split, I think TCL should be released more often with not as many
features per release. This will get bug fixes and performance
enhancements out faster and also make TCL look like it has an active
development group.
People see the once-a-year major releases and think it's dead.
Jeffrey Hobbs
...
> What is XIM? I have seen it a few more times (especially in the vim
> editor) but what it is and why is needed by tk?
XIM == X Input Methods, properly referred to as IME (Input Method
Editor) on Win2K+, but it's had other variants on Windows in the past.
It is the mechanism that allows you to type in stuff like Japanese,
Chinese, etc on a regular keyboard.
Jeffrey Hobbs
...
> Can't you just Purify 8.4a3...and then release it if it passes ?
I can tell you straight off that it won't, but that is also an
option (finish purifying, cut release). That's really a community
decision.
> Adding XIM, MAC widgits, a new regexp engine, VFS, etc. seems like 8.5
> material.
>
> I've always wondered why TK and TCL are always releasd together.
> Can't TK be split into it's own project with independent release dates
Yes, now they really could. With encouragement and help from JCW,
I finally got around to making Tk a truly loadable package. That
code is in 8.4a2+ and will be in 8.3.4. A little more work needs
to be done to enable 'package require Tk' from tclsh (basically,
make a pkgIndex.tcl file), and then it could be separated. That
is a somewhat political decision to make though (see how itcl is
already at that point, and many wanted it distributed with the core).
> People see the once-a-year major releases and think it's dead.
I don't see other languages making monthly major releases... Tcl
is maturing and really at a stable state, not dead.
Jon Guyer
ped...@west.com (Phil Dietz) wrote:
> People see the once-a-year major releases and think it's dead.
People are idiots.
--
Jonathan E. Guyer
Cameron Laird
Phil Dietz <ped...@west.com> wrote:
.
.
.
>I think that would solve many problems.
>
>Once split, I think TCL should be released more often with not as many
>features per release. This will get bug fixes and performance
>enhancements out faster and also make TCL look like it has an active
>development group.
>
>People see the once-a-year major releases and think it's dead.
It's time for me to make a public confession of my
agnosticism in regard to marketing practice. I no
longer believe in *any* gospel. I've heard that an
annual release is too often, not often enough, and
just right, with empirical evidence claimed for and
against each such proposition.
Tcl has to have an industry-wide Consortium. It
has to have a strong company backing it. It has to
have an "independent" company backing it. It can't
be too dominated by one company. It has to change
its comments. Books have to appear. Books don't
matter. Magazine articles have to appear. Magazines
don't matter. Unicode is crucial. Microsoft is cru-
cial. Unicode's the wrong thing. Microsoft is
pointless. MacOS is essential. No one cares about
MacOS.
I'm sure that marketing is a powerful thing. It's
become evident to me that I don't have good judgment
in this area, though. All I can go by in regard to
Tcl is what feels right to me on an engineering
basis.
My best to those of you who continue the quest for
market share.
--
Cameron Laird <cla...@NeoSoft.com>
Business: http://www.Phaseit.net
Personal: http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/home.html
Phil Ehrens
And let's lynch that wacko Doc Searles while were
on a roll. Marketing has no place in science or
engineering; it always results in a loss to the
community and a stifling of innovation.
Anyone who was counting on the Scriptics IPO to
make them rich has to agree ;^)
As far as OS compatibility goes, the one who requires
it should either code it or pay somebody else to do
it. How's that for a sound "business model"?
Phil
Mo
Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap.
I too am getting tired of these folks that proclaim
they and only they know what is needed to "save Tcl".
Tcl does not need saving, it has been around for more
than a decade and it will be around in the next decade.
It solves many problems very well, other not so well.
I have seen other "solutions" with lots of marketing
come and go, and yet Tcl is still here getting the
job done. If you have an idea about how Tcl can be
improved, get off your duff and do something about it.
Write up a patch, write a test case, or write a TIP.
Don't just sit around and complain. Get your hands
dirty, learn something, do something. Anything
would be better than sitting around proclaiming
that you and only you know what is best for everyone
else and then wondering why that gets no results.
Mo
P.S.
Yes, I am accusing everyone (including myself) of
having done this in the past.
Frédéric Bonnet
"Cameron Laird" <cla...@starbase.neosoft.com> wrote:
> It's time for me to make a public confession of my
> agnosticism in regard to marketing practice. I no
> longer believe in *any* gospel. I've heard that an
> annual release is too often, not often enough, and
> just right, with empirical evidence claimed for and
> against each such proposition.
>
> Tcl has to have an industry-wide Consortium. It
> has to have a strong company backing it. It has to
> have an "independent" company backing it. It can't
> be too dominated by one company. It has to change
> its comments. Books have to appear. Books don't
> matter. Magazine articles have to appear. Magazines
> don't matter. Unicode is crucial. Microsoft is cru-
> cial. Unicode's the wrong thing. Microsoft is
> pointless. MacOS is essential. No one cares about
> MacOS.
>
> I'm sure that marketing is a powerful thing. It's
> become evident to me that I don't have good judgment
> in this area, though. All I can go by in regard to
> Tcl is what feels right to me on an engineering
> basis.
>
> My best to those of you who continue the quest for
> market share.
Amen. Too long for a QOTW, but a memorable one anyway.
--
Frédéric Bonnet fbo...@users.sourceforge.net
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Theory may inform, but Practice convinces" George Bain
lvi...@yahoo.com
According to Cameron Laird <cla...@starbase.neosoft.com>:
:It's time for me to make a public confession of my
:agnosticism in regard to marketing practice. I no
:longer believe in *any* gospel. I've heard that an
:annual release is too often, not often enough, and
:just right, with empirical evidence claimed for and
:against each such proposition.
:My best to those of you who continue the quest for
:market share.
Cameron, my feeling is this - until we can get a significant number of
the EXISTING users of Tcl positiviely contributing back to the community
(whether on <URL: http://purl.org/thecliff/tcl/wiki/ >,
<URL: http://purl.org/tcl/home/ > , comp.lang.tcl, or whatever)
it seems mis-directed energy to get even MORE people into the community.
Otherwise, we would have an ever increasing number of unsatisfied
'customers'...
Kristoffer Lawson
: Here, Here!
: And let's lynch that wacko Doc Searles while were
: on a roll. Marketing has no place in science or
: engineering; it always results in a loss to the
: community and a stifling of innovation.
Well marketing, of a sort, has done a lot of good for Perl and Python.
One shouldn't underestimate the importance of how technologies are
perceived. Engineers are people too.
For what it's worth: while 8.4 has taken longer than it should have
(for quite understandable reasons), a more reasonable release pace
sounds fine right now. I'd like to get important stuff in 8.4. Not
just a "we have a couple new options" release. In addition, I would
supporting moving Tk to a different release schedule into a truly
independent development effort. This might even help relations with
other communities using Tk.
--
- ---------- = = ---------//--+
| / Kristoffer Lawson | www.fishpool.fi|.com
+-> | se...@fishpool.com | - - --+------
|-- Fishpool Creations Ltd - / |
+-------- = - - - = --------- /~setok/
Phil Dietz
> In article <21ccedf1.01100...@posting.google.com>,
> Phil Dietz <ped...@west.com> wrote:
> >People see the once-a-year major releases and think it's dead.
OK...the last line was not my main point.
8.4 has some very nice core improvements...byte compiled lappend and
append, etc.
It's been over a year since 8.4a1 (June 2000).
I agree adding XIM, virtual FS, etc. are all nice....as well as adding
more TK widgets, updating Mac behavior, etc, but jeesh, 1.2 years is
already long.
lvi...@yahoo.com
According to Phil Dietz <ped...@west.com>:
:Adding XIM, MAC widgits, a new regexp engine, VFS, etc. seems like 8.5
:material.
XIM is critical work - having Unicode support without XIM makes entering
that unicode characters rather difficult...
Kristoffer Lawson
: Cameron, my feeling is this - until we can get a significant number of
: the EXISTING users of Tcl positiviely contributing back to the community
: (whether on <URL: http://purl.org/thecliff/tcl/wiki/ >,
: <URL: http://purl.org/tcl/home/ > , comp.lang.tcl, or whatever)
: it seems mis-directed energy to get even MORE people into the community.
: Otherwise, we would have an ever increasing number of unsatisfied
: 'customers'...
I'm sorry but I think this is very naive. More users means more potential
contributors. More users means more feedback and ideas (I'd hate to think
people here think that's a bad thing). More users means more books
and publicity. To say that having more people using Tcl is not beneficial
to the language is simply wrong. That goes for any other technology as well
(there are people who think Linux should not grow).
Donal K. Fellows
> 8.4 has some very nice core improvements...byte compiled lappend and
> append, etc.
>
> It's been over a year since 8.4a1 (June 2000).
>
> I agree adding XIM, virtual FS, etc. are all nice....as well as adding
> more TK widgets, updating Mac behavior, etc, but jeesh, 1.2 years is
> already long.
It is a long time, but too many people haven't been mucking in and
helping. I'd rather have problems from too many contributions than
too few...
Maybe soon I'll get a version of Tcl up with pervasive support for
64-bit numbers on a platform with a 32-bit word-size. I'm writing
the tests at the moment, but the mods to the bytecode engine are
*really* non-trivial (not that big, but deep as it is necessary to
preserve as much existing behaviour w.r.t. overflow as possible.) If
I manage to get the code ready for others (in "highly experiental"
mode :^) then it might even make the cut for 8.4...
Donal (we're not just sitting around doing nothing...)
--
"Windows is a car with square wheels (architecture) and a huge engine (hype,
etc.), capable of of making the car move despite the square wheels. Linux
is a car with round wheels but a small engine, capable of making the car go
despite the small engine." -- John Latham <j...@cs.man.ac.uk>
lvi...@yahoo.com
According to Kristoffer Lawson <se...@fishpool.com>:
: To say that having more people using xxx is not beneficial
:yyy is simply wrong.
I understand you disagree. And I certainly don't mean that we should
chase people away.
However, you try walking into a restraunt, bank, grocery store, library,
etc. that has 2, 20, 200, and 2000 people in front of you , all waiting on
the same number of clerks (where that number is relatively small) and see
at which point you lose patience and walk out.
lvi...@yahoo.com
According to Donal K. Fellows <fell...@cs.man.ac.uk>:
:Donal (we're not just sitting around doing nothing...)
This is a very important point - the people who are contributing are
working very hard. If others in the community want see more done ...
well, it's already been said several times in the past few months that
some of us are too quick to tell people to roll up their sleeves.
I guess I can say to those who truly believe that there is no way they
can contribute anything whatsoever, in terms of code, examples, tutorials,
etc. they should step into the queue that i mention elsewhere in this
thread (the one that is growing from the 200 to the 2000...)
Kristoffer Lawson
: However, you try walking into a restraunt, bank, grocery store, library,
: etc. that has 2, 20, 200, and 2000 people in front of you , all waiting on
: the same number of clerks (where that number is relatively small) and see
: at which point you lose patience and walk out.
Ah, but while it's a problem for a while, I'd rather be running a restaurant
with 2000 people visiting. While it'll be frustrating at first, I can
hire new people to help with the job and generate more profit ;-)
Helmut Giese
>: etc. that has 2, 20, 200, and 2000 people in front of you , all waiting on
>: the same number of clerks (where that number is relatively small) and see
>: at which point you lose patience and walk out.
>
>Ah, but while it's a problem for a while, I'd rather be running a restaurant
>with 2000 people visiting. While it'll be frustrating at first, I can
>hire new people to help with the job and generate more profit ;-)
Gee, I knew there had to be a catch to Open Software: the more people
use it, the more profit we make.
Now, if you would just be kind enough to disclose the necessary
details for this exciting business model ...
Helmut
Kristoffer Lawson
:>: However, you try walking into a restraunt, bank, grocery store, library,
Oh, it doesn't translate to financial profit, but profit in
open source terms: more contributions, input, mindshare and thus more
books, support, development. Users can be annoying, but we should
welcome all of them and the more the better.