2004-11-01
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QOTW:  "The presence of a Troubleshooting section in any manual is a red
flag that there is brokenated terribility. If the software isn't sufficiently
transparent that you can diagnose a problem by interacting with it, how is a
manual going to help?"  -- Kevin Kenny

"An interactive tclsh is often faster than the man pages."
"Tcl's unusual in having pretty clean failure semantics.  Typically we
don't *document* the failure semantics, but we do define it."  -- Richard
Suchenwirth and Donal K. Fellows, counseling a newcomer on Tcl's Tao


POTW:  If you're familiar enough with Starkits to relish their 
convenience, the menu the Starkit Distribution Archive presents
will make your mouth water.  Highlights include a binary (!)
cross-platform graph editor, the Coccinella chat client, a 
23-language dictionary, a detailed star map, and much more.
    http://mini.net/sdarchive/


    A quest for an introduction to GUI design leads to a discussion on the
    philosophy of deployment
        http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=f982o05g8qrusecqqf9e68qj7gv75vnjot%404ax.com
    
    Version 0.8 of TclDES is released with new features and new
    documentation. "A Guide to TclDES" provides examples of TclDES
    and an introduction to DES modes of operation.
        http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=7Eygd.544619%248_6.174998%40attbi_s04
    
    A complicated scrolling question
        http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=IKAfd.11%24dK2.8%40dfw-service2.ext.ray.com
    
    Help build a better tcl tutorial
        http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=68cd8f94.0410291004.546f01d9%40posting.google.com
    
    Algorithm needed
        http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=slrncnv8d3.g0f.avl%40gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at#link1
    
    Spying on a USB port
        http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=wJPgd.36814%24QJ3.591%40newssvr21.news.prodigy.com
    

Thanks to Arjen Markus for his report from the Wiki:
  Quite unusual: this week's summary will have a high C content - 
  but fear not, it all has to do with Tcl and there are plenty of
  other goodies!
  
  The lower levels of Tcl/Tk
  - Ever tried to include a Tcl interpreter in a program? Well, 
    here are a few pointers for the linking stage ... 
    <http;//wiki.tcl.tk/6262>
  
  - It does not exist yet, but wouldn't it be great?
    <http://wiki.tcl.tk/12846>
  
  - It is almost there! A version of Critcl with a compiler included:
    <http://wiki.tcl.tk/12796>
  
  The slightly higher levels of Tcl/Tk
  - Dealing with binary data? You may want to contribute to 
    <http://wiki.tcl.tk/1180>.
  
  - The subtle art of marking a rectangle on the canvas - 
    <http://wiki.tcl.tk/8479>.
  
  The down-to-earth levels of Tcl/Tk
  - Fetching a file from the Internet? You do not need "wget" ...
    10 lines of Tcl suffice for this (minimal) replacement - 
    <http://wiki.tcl.tk/12871>
  
  - Functional programming is not at all elusive to the diligent
    Tcl programmer. Here is a worked-out example for the "filter" 
    functionality - <http://wiki.tcl.tk/12850>
  
  The illusionary levels of Tcl/Tk
  - You have to watch out for this one: <http://wiki.tcl.tk/12797>
    is a classic optical illusion
  
  - All but illusion, a framework for handling huge amounts of 
    data, using Perl/Tk - <http://wiki.tcl.tk/12799>
  

Everything Tcl-related you want is probably one or two clicks away in these
pages:
    The "Welcome to comp.lang.tcl" message by Andreas Kupries
        http://www.purl.org/net/tcl-welcome

    The Tcl Developer Site is Tcl's "home base".
	http://www.tcl.tk

    Larry Virden maintains a comp.lang.tcl FAQ launcher.
        http://www.purl.org/NET/Tcl-FAQ/

    The Tcl Developer Xchange is a highly organized resource center
    of documents and software with provisions for individuals to
    maintain references to their own software:
        http://www.tcl.tk/resource/
    The TDX sponsor, ActiveState, also keeps info to convince your
    boss Tcl is a good thing
        http://www.tcl.tk/scripting/

    The Tcl'ers Wiki is a huge, dynamic, collaboratively edited repository
    of documentation, examples, tutorials and pontifications on all things 
    Tcl.
        http://wiki.tcl.tk/0
    For the ideal overview of the topics about Tcl most likely to
    interest a newcomer, see "Arts and Crafts ..."
        http://wiki.tcl.tk/969

    ActiveState maintains binaries distribution and development tools
        http://www.activestate.com/Tcl
    along with a Cookbook of Tcl recipes
        http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Tcl

    Cameron Laird tracks several Tcl/Tk references of interest
        http://phaseit.net/claird/comp.lang.tcl/

    Cetus Links maintains a Tcl/Tk page with verified links
        http://www.cetus-links.org/oo_tcl_tk.html

    Google Groups archives comp.lang.tcl.announce posts
        http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tcl_announce/

Previous - (U)se the (R)esource, (L)uke! - messages are listed here:
  http://www.ddj.com/topics/tclurl/
An alternative is
  http://groups.google.com/groups?oi=djq&as_q=+Tcl-URL&as_ugroup=comp.lang.tcl

Suggestions/corrections for next week's posting are always welcome.

To receive a new issue of this posting in e-mail each Monday, ask
<claird@phaseit.net> to subscribe.  Be sure to mention "Tcl-URL!".
--
Dr. Dobb's Journal (http://www.ddj.com) is pleased to participate in and
sponsor the "Tcl-URL!" project.
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