Tcl Status Update Donal Fellows Euro Tcl 2014

Tcl Status Update Donal Fellows Euro. Tcl 2014

Public view Tcl Status

Current Release Status Releases Ü Tcl/Tk 8. 6. 1 “Production” Ü Released: 2013 -09 -20 Ü Fossil tag: core-8 -6 -1 Ü Tcl/Tk 8. 5. 15 “Stable” Ü Released: 2013 -09 -18 Ü Fossil tag: core-8 -5 -15 Ü Tcl/Tk 8. 4. 20 “Legacy” Ü Released: 2013 -06 -01 Ü End of Life Ü No more support Ü Not even security fixes Ü Fossil tag: core-8 -4 -20 Distribution Ü Source distribution channels Ü Source. Forge Ü Launchpad Ü Binary distributions Ü Active. Tcl Ü Tclkit ecosystem Ü In some operating systems Ü Linux Ü OSX 3

Current Support Status Support Channels Ü comp. lang. tcl Ü Ü Ü Web forum bridges Ü www. kroc. tk/forum Ü Google Groups Social media Ü Google+ Ü Facebook Q&A on Stack. Overflow Ü Most questions answered in hours Ü Ü tcl-core mailing list Ü Ü More help needed for Expect and NS 2 Not for general community questions Examples on Rosetta Code Key Websites Ü Main Site Ü www. tcl. tk Ü Public Facing Ü Documentation Ü Tutorial Ü Community Wiki Ü wiki. tcl. tk Ü Development Site Ü core. tcl. tk (replicated) Ü Fossil Ü Source, bug database 4

Developers’ view Tcl Status

Current Development Status Ü Mostly quiet since start of 2014 Ü Too much real life! Ü Bugfixing on 8. 5 and 8. 6 Ü Ü Ü Improvements to IPv 4/v 6 switching Number of other I/O bugs Compilation bugs General error message consistency Portability fixes Ü Tcl 9. 0 development started Ü Ü Ü Fossil branch: novem Cleaning out old API Working towards fully 64 -bit-capable API Ü Large memory allocations 6

On the Horizon Ü Compilation of Tcl to Native Code Ü So far, showed that it is possible in principle Ü Paper example: simple math function cos() Ü Plan Ü Start from Tcl bytecode compiler → SSA IR with type analysis → C or LLVM IR → native code Ü Fall back to bytecode or interpretation if things too nasty Ü So far, got the bytecode decompiler, an inference engine, and some tooling Ü Not yet integrated 7

On the Horizon Ü Many proposed TIPs… my selection Ü TIP #198: Image Command XPM Extension Ü TIP #262: Background Images for Frames Ü TIP #288: Allow "args" Anywhere in Procedure Formal Arguments Ü TIP #309: Expose the Expression Parsing Ü TIP #384: Add File Alteration Monitoring Ü TIP #390: A Logging API Ü TIP #405: "C" is for Cookie Ü TIP #409: UDP in Tcl Ü TIP #411: Improved Channel Introspection via "chan info" Ü TIP #415: Enable Easy Creation of Circular Arc Segments Ü TIP #424: Improving [exec] Ü TIP #426: Determining the "Type" of Commands 8

Community view Tcl Status

Wider Community Ü Rani Ahmed’s tutorial videos Ü Just because it isn’t in “the core” doesn’t mean it isn’t worth consideration Ü The best, most universal stuff can be co-distributed Ü Andro. Wish Ü More platforms! Ü Vec. Tcl looks really awesome Ü Effectively supersedes several TIPs! Ü Not everything that is “Tcl” is Tcl Ü Hecl, Jim, Eagle… 10