Subject: Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL! - weekly Tcl news and links (Apr 24)
From: Uwe Klein
Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 15:08:19 +0000
To: "Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL distribution" :;
CC:
Newsgroups: comp.lang.tcl

QOTW:  "If each bit of code [package require]s all the packages that
provide any of the commands it uses, then users will get error messages
like 'can't find package foo' instead of cryptic things like reported in
this thread." - Don Porter on c.l.t.

"Personally, I am not aware of any other community site that presents
technical information in such an elegant and bloat-free way." - Razvan
Mihai, in regard to http://wiki.tcl.tk/


POTW: Tcl/Tk and the 8.4.13 Release from April 19, 2006:  The Tcl Core Team
is pleased to announce the 8.4.13 releases of the Tcl dynamic language and
the Tk toolkit.  This is the thirteenth patch release of Tcl/Tk 8.4.  


ORBI: or what happened on comp.lang.tcl with announcements in abundance
spring has displaced a sleepy winter. 

    eTcl on SMT5600 Smartphone?  Look Ma, no Hands...
        http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/696119d00748bf5

    How do you convert a TCL list into a string that PHP can read?
    An onion of a problem:
        http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/dd844f2a60d7293a
    A layer on test practices led eventually to this tutorial from
    Bryan Oakley on tcltest:
        http://www.tclscripting.com/articles/apr06/article1.html

    Announce: tclgl2ps - hard copy o/p from Opengl
    This package consists of Christophe Guezaine's gl2ps package wrapped 
    with SWIG to produce a loadable binary extension. 
    The purpose of this extension is to produce hard-copy output 
    (postscript, pdf , latex, svg) from opengl. The present extension is 
    intended to be used in conjunction with Paul Obermeier's tcl3d 
    (formerly tclogl). 
        http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/61f0a5eb8fe3d0fd
    tclgl2ps may be downloaded from  
        http://www.sfu.ca/~gay/tclgl2ps.zip. 
    The archive contains loadable binary extensions for Windows, 32-bit 
    Linux and 64-bit Linux. (Tested on XP/SP2 and SuSE 9.3).

    ANNOUNCE: iaxclient 0.1
    It is built upon the IAXClient which is an Open Source library to 
    implement the IAX protocol used by The Asterisk Software PBX. 
    IAX is a VoIP protocol for providing voice communication, 
    both p2p and to the public telephony system through an Asterisk 
    server. We have tested this on MacOSX, Linux and 
    Windows XP, both p2p and to the public tele network.
        http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/d71388300e095a17

    [Ann] DQkit 0.10
    Dqkit is like tclkit on steroids. It includes tcl, tk, metakit, vfs,
    zlib, tclx, itcl, itk, iwidgets, blt, tbcload, tclsqlite and openssl+tls,
    according to fan Bob Techentin. It also includes threading.  This will
    probably be the final 8.4 based version.
        http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/ee15cb9b94987ef
        http://sourceforge.net/projects/dqsoftware/

    ANNOUNCE: eTcl 1.0-rc0 released - v8.4.13 core and MacOSX universal binaries
        http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/355b6d0dd829ccf8
        http://www.evolane.com/software/etcl/index.html

    building BLT 2.4 for multi-threading on windows
        http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/92cba80beec19514
    dont despair, help is just one click further:
        http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/msg/1970d634072ea4de
        http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/msg/acee16ddb690e2d0

    [Tk] How to bind . <Nomodifier-k> ?
    theory and praxis, never the twain shall meet:
        http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/b8345c075efcc06c

URBI: or what happened on comp.lang.tcl this week TEN years ago:
    Floater is available!
    Quote from the past(gregg):
      wow, i'll bet that took some doing.  150+ lines of detailed 
      technical instructions without a clue as to what the package 
      is or does.
      Is hindsight any better?
        http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/92976a2f03fd304d/

    COMMENTS REQUESTED: behavior of tk_dialog
        http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/3b0fefeccca360ff

    Reminder: TclRobots Challenge #2
        http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.corewar/browse_thread/thread/16a00560103f9da3

    looking for a Table Display widget
        http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/8b38bf2a63f244ec


Thanks to Arjen Markus for his review of Wiki updates:
  With very old pages popping now and again, your Wiki chronicler
  wonders whether there is a discernible evolution in the contents,
  subjects and style of the pages that have appeared over the 
  years... But it is probably not worth anyone's while to find 
  out :). 
  
  Discussions
  - Should we want Tcl to be immensely popular? <http://wiki.tcl.tk/15785>
    provides arguments against that thought ...
  
  - Should we, perhaps, just have fun with our beloved language?
    <http://wiki.tcl.tk/13723> takes another viewpoint.
  
  - Should we include everybody's favourite code fragment in 
    our scripts and programs? Take your pick: <http://wiki.tcl.tk/2213>
  
  - Or, maybe, just show off with some fancy clothing and other 
    tangibles - <http://wiki.tcl.tk/11192>
  
  Examples
  - Working with BWidget tree widgets _is_ fun, just look at this
    French page: <http://wfr.tcl.tk/1099>
  
  - If you want a resizeable canvas item, say a rectangle, stop and
    look at <http://wiki.tcl.tk/15777>
  
  Calculators
  - The recent discussions about the [expr] command may have triggered
    them, but just look at the screenshot of this simulated HP calculator
    - <http://wiki.tcl.tk/15312>
  
  - And if you really prefer your computations in reversed Polish notation, 
    then I guess you will want to look at <http://wiki.tcl.tk/15786>


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
    comp.lang.tcl is a crucial resource for Tcl practitioners.
    An interesting perspective on its traffic appears at
        http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/about

    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
    There's also a high-quality Wikibook on Tcl:
        http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Programming:Tcl

    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 (but
    needs to validate many of the links).
        http://phaseit.net/claird/comp.lang.tcl/

    Years ago, Cetus Links maintained a Tcl/Tk page with verified links
        http://www.cetus-links.org/oo_tcl_tk.html

    "Yahoo! Groups" archives comp.lang.tcl.announce posts--even 
    though clta itself is dormant.
        http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tcl_announce/

Previous - (U)se the (R)esource, (L)uke! - messages are supposed to be
listed at *Dr. Dobbs*, but sysad at CMP has fallen behind.  We're working
with them to restore the archive.
  http://www.ddj.com/topic/tcl/
In the meantime, 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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