2004-11-23
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QOTW:  "But still - I think, about 98% of the outside world Tcl programmers
use Tcl because of its capabilities to solve real world problems, not as a
language to do computer science."  Eckhard Lehmann

"Tcl, as implemented, tries very hard to fail (and in a [catch]able way) in
all cases where it is not documented to work."  Donal K. Fellows


POTW:  GRASS is an impressive Tcl-based open-source alternative to ArcView
(*if* you pay for extra modules of the latter).
    http://www.openosx.com/grass/


    Mac Cody supplies a new extension for generating a PDF from a Tk canvas. 
        http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=vbaod.650886%248_6.281446%40attbi_s04
    
    It's fun to watch the different ways tcl can be used to solve a
    problem. A basic question on parsing a file leads to four different
    solutions.
        http://snipurl.com/atsq
    
    Arjen Marcus explains to an enthusiastic poster how to bind to 'a'
    character. 
        http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=419C845F.985CB06A%40wldelft.nl
    
    A survey of source documentation tools.
        http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=ITZmd.120%24f5.3662%40newsread.de.ignite.net
    
    Encourage wiki authors to submit interesting code to tcllib. 
        http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=cncprk%24aqc%242%40srv38.cas.org
    
    Should test configuration and test execution be separated? 
        http://snipurl.com/att3
    
    Use the unknown command to define a new operator.
        http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=S85md.1%24A35.0%40dfw-service2.ext.ray.com
    
Thanks to Arjen Markus for his report from the Wiki:
  The end of the year draws nigh: gray, cloudy days now and dark and short
  dark days ahead - at least on the geographical location your humble
  chronicler calls his home. One could easily get depressed if it were not 
  for the sparkles of joy that brings the Wiki.
  
  Amnong such sparkles is - of course! - this one: <http://wiki.tcl.tk/12977>.
  An elegant little piece of maths and graphics.
  
  Okay, back to a more systematic approach ...
  
  Big items:
  - Running the software behind the Wiki yourself, say, via Tclhttpd:
    <http://wiki.tcl.tk/11121> tells you how.
  
  - Plenty of data on interacting with databases - all you need now is
    a couple of decisions ... which one, what do I want? Questions for
    which <http://wiki.tcl.tk/620> has lots of possible answers.
  
  - Not as simple as it looks and yet a user will want your GUI to be exactly
    that - maybe <http://wiki.tcl.tk/9762> holds the golden tip you 
    were looking for.
  
  Playful items:
  - A chat script: 350 lines is all it takes for something that looks 
    fairly complete - <http://wiki.tcl.tk/13020>
  
  - How useless these scripts are, I will leave to your discretion, 
    but Marco Maggi published a few playthings to experiment with
    3D visualisation, such as <http://wiki.tcl.tk/12984>
  
  Technical items:
  - An explanation of UDP and how you can use it in Tcl -
    <http://wiki.tcl.tk/4038>
  
  - Move the cursor in a text widget: not by a logical line but by a line
    as seen by the user. Tricky! But Tcl 8.5 will repair this. Until then:
    <http://wiki.tcl.tk/3082> is there!
  
  - Sometimes you may want to better control what goes into a variable.
    Tcl's write traces put to the rescue - <http://wiki.tcl.tk/1907>
  
  - And at other times you may want to better control how many previous 
    results you want to keep in the cache (memory is limited after all!)
     - <http://wiki.tcl.tk/13004>
  

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

    "Yahoo! 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
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--
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