2005-05-03:

QOTW: "The next version of tkHTML will support CSS." -- D. Richard Hipp

"When would a bignum of Planck time units overflow?" -- Don Porter, in a
Chatter's variation on furlongs per fortnight calculations

POTW: Ffidl lets (otherwise) pure-Tcl applications access C functions
directly.
http://wiki.tcl.tk/ffidl

The tcl-mac folk are making all kinds of progress. Tiger
acknowledges Tcl's existence and at least some of its virtues,
and Daniel Steffen provides an example use of Ffidl to access
Carbon.
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/b968c96620b8efe7/
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=7156882&forum_id=3853
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=7156881&forum_id=3853
More generally, Darwin makes for an interesting development
platform, and review of the tcl-mac mailing-list archives is
likely to interest even many people who think they're indifferent
to the Mac.

Khaled works through a typical Expect question about flexibility
to handle more than one possible response.
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/d9db26615b429f57/

One of Tcl's challenges is to glue well, but be a good cross-
platform citizen, and simultaneously support rational development
both in batch and interactive development. Windows makes for a
particular mismatch in its handling of console I/O. Melissa
Schrumpf, Don Porter, and Lawrence Chitty detail the situa-
tion, and apply correct understanding to rationalized use of
Eclipse as a Tcl development editor. TkCon briefly appears.
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/f399252c6e03bb4d/

Some sincerely regard Tcl as "quoting hell". Others of us
laud the simplicity of its syntax. A manifestation of that
symptom is clarity about grouping. Donald Arseneau writes
wisely on a couple of list-construction idioms.
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/63f61d6af50bd412/

launchd's extension language is Tcl!
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/b968c96620b8efe7/
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/macosx-10.4.ars/5
http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=147989&cid=12402246

Tclguy plans that Tcl will speak Hittite (as well as name a
few million East Asians), although "[t]here isn't a date yet
..."
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread
/thread/e530a7c9643a62aa/

Thanks to Arjen Markus for his report from the Wiki(s):
The Wiki digest of last week is the usual potpourri of very
different subjects, so let us smell samples from that bouquet
again ...

Tools to use
- If you feel that your current window manager needs to be
improved, role your own and use the rootwin extension
as a basis -

- So much is going on on computers nowadays, but at least
here is a tool to find out what TCP ports are open ...

- So you have two computers at your disposal and you want
to copy some text from the one to the next ... maybe
this will help:

- IPv4, IPv6, what does it matter? At least you can
go from the one to the other (or is that the reverse?)
-

Games to play
- Here is a little board game - it seems to be capable
of addiction ...

- A serious text editor, all Tcl/Tk, and therefore
capable of running your script on-the-fly:

Toys to play with
- Grown-up men often like to play with trains ...
explains semaphores

- Grown-up programmers often like to play with
Turing machines ...
is a very short contribution to an informal
coding match.

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

deli.cio.us presents an intriguing approach to reference commentary.
It already aggregates quite a bit of Tcl intelligence.
http://del.icio.us/tag/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.

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