QOTW: "What Problem Are You Trying To Solve?(tm) Unless you're
absolutely wedded to the Heredoc Method, there's almost certainly a
better way." - Adrian Ho on c.l.t
"Production deployment always encourages conservatism." - Donal K. Fellows
POTW: starting with this weeks TclURL ANNouncements will be strung under
under the Project Of The Week label:
Tcl/Tk
and the 8.5a4 Release from April 27, 2006
The Tcl Core Team is pleased to announce the 8.5a4 releases
of the Tcl dynamic language and the Tk toolkit.
The changes since the release of 8.5a3:
* [TIP 181] Added [namespace unknown] subcommand.
* [TIP 194] Added [apply] command.
* [TIP 208] Added [chan] command.
* [TIP 215] Made [incr] auto-initialize.
* [TIP 219] Added [chan create] subcommand (reflected channels).
* [TIP 231] Added [wm attributes] support on X11.
* [TIP 237] Unlimited range for integer calculations. ***POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY***
For scripts that rely on implicit overflow truncation in integer calculations.
* [TIP 250] Added [namespace upvar] subcommand.
* [TIP 254] Support additional types for Tcl_LinkVar.
* [TIP 255] New [expr] functions min() and max().
* [TIP 256] New [$text configure] option: -tabstyle.
* [TIP 258] Added [encoding dirs] subcommand.
* [TIP 260] New canvas text item option: -underline.
* Support for Mac OSX universal binaries.
* Support [glob] on the Hierarchical File System (HFS).
* Support Apple Type Services for Unicode Imaging (ATSUI).
* (Re-)define [:print:] to cover sensible Unicode character classes.
* Tk's default [bgerror] dialog truncate messages at 45 chars.
* [glob -nocomplain] now silences only "empty result" errors.
* ::tcl_precision value is now kept per-thread, not per-process.
* Dropped support for IRIX 4, RISCos, Ultrix, and ancient BSD.
* Dropped support for pre-ANSI C compilers (_ANSI_ARGS_).
* Dropped support for pre-msys_mingw7.zip msys builds.
* Deprecated TCL_VARARGS*; availability of stdarg.h now assumed.
* Configure script development now requires autoconf-2.59.
* Improved [clock] performance over prior 8.5a releases.
* Restored registration of "procbody", "list", and "boolean" Tcl_ObjTypes.
* Revised bytecode of [switch] (incompatible with prior 8.5a bytecode).
* Restored ability to set write traces on ::errorInfo.
* Updated clock tzdata to Olson's tzdata2005r.
* Updated LibTomMath to release 0.37.
Ann: Tcl/Tk "Universal" packages for Mac OS X
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/3571845d1116a0d0
[Ann] DQkit 8.5a4-build1
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/a80819c2aa8d03fb
ORBI: or what happened on comp.lang.tcl
Handling paths of length > 260 in Tcl on Windows
ChrisR does a reanimation ...
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/e5ac03ea0e348eb8
the history:
Are there Pathes beyond 255 Characters?
Hitches, opinions, religion on windows pathlength limitations:
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=9833529&forum_id=3854
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=9833535&forum_id=3854
Standard file open/app launch commands for Mac, Win, and X11
Kevin Walzer is asking around, like to help him?
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/1301765dba56d018
can somebody plz. convert this TCL code into JACL?
traditionally fish are made for swimming, no need to adapt.
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/2bf8b978b5d72545
heredoc like facility in Tcl?
from the drawer "everybody else has it" :
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/432fa63e254e6a64
Remember single value across restarts?
selfmodifying executables, hrmhrm...
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/78624660c40bf96a
http://wiki.tcl.tk/15837
Get fraction from number
and never should you go home with a single solution:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/9cf1571058579feb
TIPX: new, used and discarded Tips
TIP 267 by Nathan Bell : Allow 'exec' to Ignore Stderr
is a new TIP
TIP 268 by Jeff Hobbs : Enhance 'package' Version Handling
is a new TIP
Some old, some new, not everybody's shoe:
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=10268009&forum_id=3854
URBI: or what happened on comp.lang.tcl this week TEN years ago:
Tcl/Tk for NT/PowerPc
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/c9efb5aa3e6856f8
what is safe-tcl?
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/d0767d2686548f53
A QUICK TUTORIAL: running programs in the background without expect
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/1af69a2afb9fdf90
ANNOUNCE: BETA: tkgoodstuff4.1
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.misc/browse_thread/thread/9278ad89a1cc80e7
ANNOUNCE: Tcl Dallas Users Group presents George A. Howlett
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl.announce/browse_thread/thread/64d86991ca9fa62b
Thanks to Arjen Markus for his review of Wiki updates:
The Wiki pages seem to be rather serious of late, but luckily
a new game has seen the light of day ...
Serious pages
- Code that rewrites itself ... in a dim past considered
a bad habit, but is it unmanaintainable in Tcl?
<http://wiki.tcl.tk/15837>
- This French page lists a few database applications/GUIs/
packages - <http://wfr.tcl.tk/601>
- Should C++ syntax make it into the Tcl world? Or can we
simply invent a more-or-less reserved word for automating
upvar? <http://wiki.tcl.tk/4535>
Sharing ideas
- Use Tcl interactively? Surely, it is a command interpreter
after all - <http://wiki.tcl.tk/8588> if you feel you need
more information
- Capture the contents of a text widget with pictures and
tags and all? This French page may be what you are after
- <http://wfr.tcl.tk/1116>
- Oh my, where will this end? At some point we will have
more OO approaches than we have OO programs ...
<http://wiki.tcl.tk/15750>
Solitary game
- Yes, another solitaire game to while away the time:
<http://wiki.tcl.tk/15842>
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.
To receive a new issue of this posting in e-mail each Monday, ask
<[email protected]> 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.