From: lvirden@cas.org (Larry W. Virden) Newsgroups: comp.lang.tcl.announce,comp.lang.tcl,comp.lang.perl.tk,comp.answers,news.answers Subject: comp.lang.tcl Frequently Asked Questions (June 27, 1997) (1/5) Followup-To: comp.lang.tcl Date: 29 Jun 1997 03:56:15 -0700 Organization: The Tcl/Tk FAQ Group Sender: mitchellorg@non.non.net Expires: 1 Aug 97 23:59:00 GMT Message-ID: <pgpmoose.199706290355.12724@non.non.net> Reply-To: lvirden@cas.org (Larry W. Virden) Summary: A regular posting of the comp.lang.tcl Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) and their answers. This is the first of five parts. This part introduces Tcl and Tk and discusses documentation, etc. Keywords: tcl, extended tcl, tk, expect X-Original-Sender: lvirden@cas.org X-Url: http://www.teraform.com/%7Elvirden/tcl-faq/part1.html Archive-name: tcl-faq/part1 X-Auth: PGPMoose V1.1 PGP comp.lang.tcl.announce iQCVAwUBM7Y/O8VCYQpvzJ9ZAQG6bgQAyUPeb9RZ1jffLku9A0e2ofG+BZsTZf4+ fkd3//zjB3YmMR6b725grmcsZT7m1NUdfKF1xjq7Qf2vPQe1SpWjJC8QN6kGKV9j RCTuxfqL/3ksO9g3ZN81tRNUEVpJPuIyOVOUKDcDxGTGrCU5f4kSBw7w8DvfI6Ki xZ/JSMsGqAA= =1OYS Posting-Frequency: monthly Last-modified: June 27, 1997 Version: 8.003 URL: http://www.teraform.com/%7Elvirden/tcl-faq/part1.html Comp-lang-tcl-archive-name: tcl-faq.part01 For more information concerning Tcl (see "tcl-faq/part2"), (see "tcl-faq/part3"), (see "tcl-faq/part4"), or (see "tcl-faq/part5"). Also (see "tcl-faq/commercial-uses/part1"), (see "tcl-faq/bibliography/part1"), (see "tcl-faq/usage"), or (see "tcl-faq/windows"). Index of questions: I. Origin of comp.lang.tcl, the FAQ information, and to whom do I contact for more information about the FAQ? II. What is Tcl? Tk? Extended Tcl? What is Tcl _not_? III. Do these packages run on my machine? A. Unix B. MacOS C. INTEL DOS-like systems D. VMS E. AmigaDOS F. NeXT G. Other IV. Other than C, What languages can talk to tcl/tk? A. Shell B. C++ C. Modula-3 D. Eiffel E. Ada F. Perl G. Prolog H. Other V. What training material is available? A. Books B. Training courses, etc. C. Time-related seminars, conferences, workshops. VI. Where do I report problems, bugs, or enhancements about Tcl - or - what is comp.lang.tcl? End of FAQ Index ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: FAQ General information Subject: -I- Origin of comp.lang.tcl, the FAQ information, and to whom do I contact for more information about the FAQ? What is comp.lang.tcl? First, let me assure you what it is not. <URL:news:comp.lang.tcl> (and <URL:news:comp.lang.tcl.announce> now) are NOT bulletin boards. They are not, innately, mailing lists. Some users may experience the messages in those manners, but these communities of users are what is known as USENET newsgroups. While Dr. John Ousterhout was the creator of the original, unmoderated <URL:news:comp.lang.tcl>, in the current incarnation, clt (as it is often referenced) has no moderator, no owner, no authority to whom one can appeal when one feels slighted, offended, libeled, etc. On the other hand, there are a group of moderators associated with <URL:news:comp.lang.tcl.announce>, whose job it is to ensure that the postings there remain 'on charter'. Another newsgroup which you might encounter Tcl discussion is <URL:news:alt.comp.tkdesk>, where discussions about the Tk application TkDesk may take place. Discussion about SCO's vtcl (a graphical interface extension based on the Motif library) can be found on <URL:news:comp.unix.sco.programmer>. And of course, discussions of ports of Tcl/Tk/other Tcl-based extensions and programs can be found on the appropriate OS related newsgroups. The majority of readers of <URL:news:comp.lang.tcl> are access the postings in English, and seem to prefer plain text postings formatted to 78 or less characters per line, as opposed to HTML, Postscript, MIME base64, Macintosh special character sets, etc.. They also prefer to have postings which specify a working email address in the From or Reply-To header (or at least in the body of the msg somewhere). While alternatives to that are certainly possible, you decrease the chance of getting a timely relevant answer by choosing alternatives to these. These rules are not unique to clt, but are the typical USENET netiquette that posters are asked to respect. As an alternative to this, there are the French <URL:news:fr.comp.lang.tcl> and German <URL:news:de.comp.lang.tcl> equivalents of <URL:news:comp.lang.tcl>. One question that comes up fairly often concerning <URL:news:comp.lang.tcl> is 'why isn't it split?'. The newsgroup varies in traffic, but I have seen as many as 45 messages a day (counting current cross postings, etc.) Currently, many have come forward with ideas on how a split could be handled, but no concensus has been reached. Also, no moderators have stepped forward to take over moderation of a split group. During January, 1996, <URL:news:comp.lang.tcl.announce>, a moderated group containing announcements of new software, doc, etc. relating to Tcl, was created. So as of right now, asking to split the newsgroup only adds to the existing traffic, without resolving any problems. The information in this set of FAQs comes from several sources. The primary source of information is the group itself - I spend (much too much) time each month culling through what I feel are some of the best answers, gathering up new information on ports, etc. and adding it here. I also gather new application information and add it as best I can. The next most predominant source of information comes from the authors of the various software packages. Finally, a small amount comes from my personal experiences. You can find my general Tcl FAQs at either <URL:http://www.teraform.com/%7Elvirden/tcl-faq/> or <URL:ftp://ftp.neosoft.com/pub/tcl/sorted/info/faq/tcl-faq.part01.gz> <URL:ftp://ftp.neosoft.com/pub/tcl/sorted/info/faq/tcl-faq.part02.gz>, <URL:ftp://ftp.neosoft.com/pub/tcl/sorted/info/faq/tcl-faq.part03.gz>, <URL:ftp://ftp.neosoft.com/pub/tcl/sorted/info/faq/tcl-faq.part04.gz>, <URL:ftp://ftp.neosoft.com/pub/tcl/sorted/info/faq/tcl-faq.part05.gz>. The primary location for the commercial use of Tcl FAQ is <URL:ftp://ftp.neosoft.com/pub/tcl/sorted/info/faq/tcl-commercial-faq.gz> as well as <URL:http://www.cpu.com/cpu/tclcom1.htm>. The author is <URL:mailto:gwl@cpu.com> (Gerald W. Lester). This FAQ contains information either about commercial products which incorporate Tcl as a part of them, firms which teach classes about Tcl and Tk in some manner, and other commercial ventures. Please be sure to contact the maintainer for all relevant material about _your_ product! A bibliography of published material related to Tcl will be managed by <URL:mailto:glv@utdallas.edu> (Glenn Vanderburg). (See "tcl-faq/bibliography/part1") or ftp it at <URL:ftp://ftp.neosoft.com/pub/tcl/sorted/info/faq/tcl-faq-bib.gz>. The second FAQ contains a series of Tcl-related questions and answers and is managed by <URL:mailto:jmoss@ichips.intel.com> (Joe Moss). (See "tcl-faq/usage"), <URL:http://psg.com/%7Ejoem/tcl/faq.html> or find it at <URL:ftp://ftp.neosoft.com/pub/tcl/sorted/info/faq/tcl-faq-usage.gz>. The third contains Tk-related questions and answers and is managed by <URL:mailto:jeff.hobbs@acm.org> (Jeffrey Hobbs). You can find it at <URL:http://www.cs.uoregon.edu/research/tcl/faqs/tk/>. Cameron Laird has made available his personal notes on mistakes frequently made by newcomers to Tcl at <URL:http://starbase.neosoft.com/%7Eclaird/comp.lang.tcl/fmm.html> and will update it as time permits. FAQs are also available for the Windows port of Tcl <URL:http://www.pconline.com/%7Eerc/tclwin.htm> and perl/Tk <URL:http://w4.lns.cornell.edu/%7Epvhp/ptk/ptkFAQ.html>. If you have corrections, enhancements, modifications, clarifications, suggestions, ideas, new questions, new answers to questions which have never been asked, or something else that I have not covered above, contact me at <URL:mailto:lvirden@cas.org>. ------------------------------ From: FAQ General information Subject: -II- What is Tcl? Tk? Extended Tcl? o Highlights of Tcl based languages Tcl and Tk originated with Dr. John Ousterhout (OH'-stir-howt) from the University of California, Berkeley, California. A quip about the pronunciation of Dr. O's last name from <URL:news:comp.lang.tcl> pundit <URL:mailto:js@aelfric.bu.edu> Jay Sekora: > `It's pronounced Oh-stir-howt > without a doubt! > Not Oh-stir-hoot; > he's not a brute.' Dr. Ousterhout got the idea for Tcl while on sabbatical leave at DEC's Western Research Laboratory in the fall of 1987. He started actually implementing it when he got back to Berkeley in the spring of 1988; by summer of that year it was in use in some internal applications, but there was no Tk. The first external releases of Tcl were in 1989. Tk implemention began in 1989, and the first release of Tk was in 1991. Tcl (current release version 7.6p2) stands for ``tool command language'' and is pronounced ``tickle.'' The home download site for the Tcl source code is <URL:http://sunscript.sun.com/TclTkCore/>. Tcl is actually two things: a language and a library. First, Tcl is a simple textual language, intended primarily for issuing commands to interactive programs such as text editors, debuggers, illustrators, and shells. It has a simple syntax and is also programmable, so Tcl users can write command procedures to provide more powerful commands than those in the built-in set. Second, Tcl is a library package that can be embedded in application programs. The Tcl library consists of a parser for the Tcl language, routines to implement the Tcl built-in commands, and procedures that allow each application to extend Tcl with additional commands specific to that application. The application program generates Tcl commands and passes them to the Tcl parser for execution. Commands may be generated by reading characters from an input source, or by associating command strings with elements of the application's user interface, such as menu entries, buttons, or keystrokes. When the Tcl library receives commands it parses them into component fields and executes built-in commands directly. For commands implemented by the application, Tcl calls back to the application to execute the commands. In many cases commands will invoke recursive invocations of the Tcl interpreter by passing in additional strings to execute (procedures, looping commands, and conditional commands all work in this way). An application program gains several advantages by using Tcl for its command language. First, Tcl provides a standard syntax: once users know Tcl, they will be able to issue commands easily to any Tcl-based application. Second, Tcl provides programmability. All a Tcl application needs to do is to implement a few application-specific low-level commands. Tcl provides many utility commands plus a general programming interface for building up complex command procedures. By using Tcl, applications need not re-implement these features. Third, extensions to Tcl, such as the Tk toolkit, provide mechanisms for communicating between applications by sending Tcl commands back and forth. The common Tcl language framework makes it easier for applications to communicate with one another. Note that Tcl was designed with the philosophy that one should actually use two or more languages when designing large software systems. One for manipulating complex internal data structures, or where performance is key, and another, such as Tcl, for writing smallish scripts that tie together the other pieces, providing hooks for the user to extend. For the Tcl script writer, ease of learning, ease of programming and ease of gluing are more important than performance or facilities for complex data structures and algorithms. Tcl was designed to make it easy to drop into a lower language when you come across tasks that make more sense at a lower level. In this way, the basic core functionality can remain small and one need only bring along pieces that one particular wants or needs. For a white paper written by Dr. Ousterhout discussing scripting languages, and Tcl in particular, see <URL:http://www.sunlabs.com/%7Eouster/scripting.html>. Tk (current release 4.2p2) is an extension to Tcl which provides the programmer with an interface to the X11 windowing system. Note that Tk has been successfully compiled under X11 R4, X11 R5, X11 R6, as well as Sun's NeWS/X11 environments. The home download site for this Tk release is <URL:http://sunscript.sun.com/TclTkCore/>. Tcl/Tk 8.0b1 has been made available as an _beta_ release. Users of this version should be prepared for problems to be present. See <URL:http://sunscript.sun.com/TclTkCore/8.0.files.html> for Tcl/Tk 8.0's release plans. Many users will encounter Tcl and Tk via the ``wish'' command. Wish is a simple windowing shell which permits the user to write Tcl/Tk applications in a prototyping environment. <URL:http://www.sunlabs.com/people/john.ousterhout/> and <URL:http://sunscript.sun.com/> are available for more details about Tcl. Tcl 8.0 plans can be found at <URL:http://sunscript.sun.com/TclTkCore/8.0.files.html> as well as other places. Note that one frequently asked question is whether Tcl/Tk can handle Japanese, Chinese, Korean, .... language fonts. As of 8.0, it cannot not, as distributed by Sun. However, as of Jun. 1997, it was the intention of the Sun team to provide full Unicode support in Tcl 8.1. John has given me permission to add this quote as well: >From: ouster@tcl.eng.sun.com (John Ousterhout) >Newsgroups: comp.lang.tcl >Subject: Re: The future of TcL/Tk's Copyright Terms >Date: 31 Aug 1994 20:08:19 GMT >Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc. >Message-ID: <342nvj$6e9@engnews2.Eng.Sun.COM> > I discussed the status of the Tcl and Tk libraries with people at Sun > as part of my pre-hire negotiations, and we're in agreement that they > will remain free and unrestricted just as they have always been. Future > enhancements made to Tcl and Tk by my group at Sun, including the ports > to Macs and PCs, will be made freely available to anyone to use for > any purpose. My view, and that of the people I report to at Sun, is > that it wouldn't work for Sun to try to take Tcl and Tk proprietary > anyway: someone (probably me, in a new job) would just pick up the > last free release and start an independent development path. This > would be a terrible thing for everyone since it would result in > incompatible versions. > Of course, Sun does need to make money from the work of my team or else > they won't be able to continue to support us. Our current plan is to > charge for development tools and interesting extensions and applications. > Balancing the public and the profitable will be an ongoing challenge for > us, but it is very important both to me and to Sun to keep the support > of the existing Tcl community. I imagine this discussion will repeat > from time to time over the next few years, but I think we can make things > work out well for everyone. See <URL:http://www.utdallas.edu/acc/glv/Tcl/usenix95-bof.html> for more details. John also has asked me to mention the following: > there are now pages containing release notes. The best thing is just to > refer people to my home page, which is: > <URL:http://www.sunlabs.com/people/john.ousterhout/> > <URL:http://www.sunlabs.com/research/%7Eouster/> > <URL:http://sunscript.sun.com/> > You might put a notice about this in the FAQ to help people who see > the FAQ after we reorganize. Jacob Levy <URL:mailto:jyl@tcl-tk.com>, Sun Tcl team member, stated in mid August, 1996 that > "[Tcl 7.6 is] scheduled to appear for beta testing shortly (no definite > date yet, sorry). The Tcl plug-in is based on Tcl 7.6plug, which is the > version after that, and then we'll have Tcl 7.7. The bytecode compiler > is scheduled to appear in Tcl 8.0 which is the version after Tcl 7.7." In the time since that message appeared, Tcl 7.6 was formally released. A "Tcl-Powered" logo is now available for licensing from Sun. Contact <URL:mailto:jay.backstrand@Sun.COM> (Jay Backstrand) with your FAX number and a copy of the license will be faxed to you as soon as possible. Once the license is signed and faxed back, the logo will be sent to you for inclusion on your web pages or products. Finally, during April and May of 1997, the Sun research group responsible for Tcl development were spun off into a new business group. Here are a few questions and answers about the status of Sun, Tcl, and the new business group, as things stood during early May, 1997. >From: John Ousterhout <ouster@tcl.Eng.Sun.COM> Newsgroups: comp.lang.tcl.announce Subject: SunScript FAQ Date: 6 May 1997 17:11:22 -0700 Q. Exactly what is the status of SunScript within Sun? A. We are spinning out of Sun Laboratories into a relatively self-contained unit with our own marketing and sales units. We will officially be in the CTO (Chief Technology Officer) organization within Sun, which was headed by Eric Schmidt until he left for Novell in April. This is the place where many new businesses are incubated in Sun (for example, JavaSoft started here). Sun Laboratories is also part of the CTO organization. Q. How big is SunScript? A. We will grow to 25 (from our previous Sun Labs headcount of 12) as quickly as possible. We're already about half way there and we've filled most of our technical slots. The key positions still to be filled are General Manager and Director of Engineering. If you know good people for these slots, send them our way. Q. What is the new structure of the Tcl-related Web and FTP sites at Sun? A. Our new Web home is at http://sunscript.sun.com but we will continue to use ftp://ftp.sunlabs.com/pub/tcl as our FTP location for the forseeable future. The old Web pages at http://www.sunlabs.com/tcl will stay around for a while, but the main page will refer people to the new SunScript server. Q. Will email addresses for the SunScript team members be changing? A. No. All of us will retain our existing addresses, such as john.ousterhout@eng.sun.com. Q. Is the name of the language changing from Tcl to SunScript? A. No: SunScript is just the name of the business group within Sun. The plan, as always, is to keep the core Tcl and Tk facilities free and open; I think it would be a bad idea to use a name for them that appears to tie them to any particular vendor. It's not yet clear what any of our products will be named. Extended Tcl (tclX) (Version 7.6.0) - This is an extended set of commands for Tcl developed by Karl Lehenbauer and Mark Diekhans. The authors' home ftp site for Extended Tcl is <URL:ftp://ftp.neosoft.com/pub/tcl/sorted/distrib/tclx/>. Extended Tcl is oriented towards system programming tasks, with many additional interfaces to the Unix operating system along with other useful utilities. Many other useful (and in some cases essential) extensions also exist. (See "tcl-faq/part5") for details. o General information about Tcl and Tk by <URL:mailto:glv@utdallas.edu> (Glenn Vanderburg) Tcl (Tool command language) is a freely distributable simple, interpreted language designed to be used as a common extension and customization language for applications. It was designed and implemented by Dr. John Ousterhout in the hope that application designers could spend more of their time on applications and less on scripting languages, and in the hope that users could spend less time learning new scripting languages for each new application. Many useful applications, some of them sold commercially, use Tcl as their scripting language. Tcl is clean and regular, and relatively easy for non-hackers to learn. It is command-oriented, and commands added by applications and users exist on an equal footing with the built-in Tcl commands. Tcl has both simple variables and associative arrays (tables), and all values (including procedure bodies) are represented as strings. Simple customization scripts (such as preference initialization scripts) usually look much like novice users expect them to: a series of simple commands which set options. Tcl is implemented as a C library, which can be embedded in an application. The application can add its own commands to the interpreter (using a clean C interface). It is distributed under a license which allows use for any purpose with no royalties. The Tk toolkit is a Tcl extension (a group of new Tcl commands) which provides a Tcl interface to the X Window System. Tk is one of the easiest ways to build a graphical interface to an application, and due to the interpreted nature of Tcl, Tk-based interfaces tend to be much more customizable and dynamic than those built with one of the C- or C++-based toolkits. Tk implements the Motif look and feel. A number of interesting X applications are implemented entirely in Tk, with no new application-specific commands at all. Tk also provides a mechanism by which one application can send Tcl scripts to other Tk-based applications running on the same display, for easy cooperation between tools. Tcl and Tk are mature, and quite stable, but they are not static: Dr. Ousterhout has moved from Berkeley to Sun Microsystems, where his group is pursuing such projects as a commercial-quality Tk graphical interface designer, an on-the-fly Tcl compiler, and Macintosh and Microsoft Windows ports of Tk. John has stated that the copyright status and licensing provisions of Tcl and Tk will not change. ---- As to what Tcl is not - in the context of the discussion in <URL:news:comp.lang.tcl>, it is not related directly to the Think C Library (TCL) available on the Mac. Confusingly enough, the language concerned with here _is_ available on the Mac, and someone in fact may have used Think C to compile it there. Just one of those universal 'coincidences' that set the stage for Vogon interstellar highway construction crews. Also, Oracle has a product called Tk2Motif which has nothing to do with Tcl or Tk as we are referring to it. Another 'TCL' that is sometimes encountered has to do with the Pick operating system - again, that is different than the language being discussed. One question that is becoming common is whether Tcl/Tk/etc. is Year 2000 compliant. Older versions of Tcl (pre 7.5) have no clock specific commands, and so have no Year 2000 problems. It is recommended that users of Tcl 7.5 or newer upgrade to at least Tcl 7.6p2, where the Tcl clock command has been patched to get around known problems surrounding Year 2000 issues. However, this does not imply that Tcl some how prevents the user from being able to write software that will break in the Year 2000 - only that Tcl and Tk as distributed from 7.6p2/4.2p2 on has addressed all reported Year 2000 issues. ------------------------------ From: FAQ General information Subject: -III- Do these packages run on my machine? A. Unix Tcl runs on Sun 3s and 4s running SunOS 4 and SunOS 5 (Solaris 1.x and 2.x), DECstations running Ultrix, DEC VAXen running Ultrix or BSD, DEC Alphas running OSF/1, 386s running SCO Unix, Xenix, Bell-Tech, all sorts of HPs running HP-UX (even HP Snakes running OSF/1 and HP-UX). Intel [34]86 systems running 386bsd, netbsd, freebsd, BSDI, and Linux have Tcl ported. Various CPUs running System V.4 report having ported Tcl. Tcl also appears to be running on Sequent Symmetry running Dynix as well as OSF/1. It also has been reported to run fine on IBM RS6000 under AIX 3.x as well as IBM ES/9000 and AIX/ESA. There were few problems getting it running under Mt. Xinu Mach. It also has been ported to Encore 91's running UMAX V (an 88k based System V with BSD extension Unix). It also runs on Apollos running BSD/SYSV. Tcl runs on a Cray running Unicos. Someone ported Tcl to a Sony NeWS machine running NEWS-OS 4.2. A port to a Convex 3220 and 3880 was also reported. Folks have compiled Tcl/Tk/BLT/itcl to a Mac running the latest A/UX. A port to Tenon MachTen 2.1VM, running on a Mac II which was running MacOS System 7.1, has been reported. The autoconfig did most of the work. That particular user had not ported Tk to this environment yet. Tcl also runs on Supermax Motorola/MIPS based multiprocessors under SMOS. Tk (being based on Tcl) generally requires X11R4 or better as the only additional software requirement. It runs on any of the above Unix systems with that base of software. It also runs on VMS and OSF/1. Note that SGI is shipping Tcl/Tk, TclMotif, expect, and some other custom extensions along with the OS starting with Irix 6.2. The desktop environment is called Indigo Magic. For information on Tcl/Tk/TclX availability (see "tcl-faq/part4"). B. MacOS (See "tcl-faq/part2") for details of a Macintosh Tcl Mailing list. From Tcl 7.5/Tk 4.1 on, the source code for Tcl and Tk should compile and run on a Macintosh from the original distribution. Learn more about this from reading <URL:http://sunscript.sun.com/mac/mactcl-project.html> Also (see "tcl-faq/part4"), the Tcl programs/packages catalog, for the latest port locations and versions. C. INTEL DOS-like systems From Tcl 7.5 on, the source code for Tcl and Tk should compile and run on Windows machines from the original distribution. See <URL:http://sunscript.sun.com/win/wintcl-project.html> for the details. Steve Furr <URL:mailto:furr@qnx.com> reports getting Tcl ported to QNX without a lot of trouble. He mentions that QNX users who have the beta X should have gotten a CD-ROM update with Tcl and Tk on the CD. A port of Tcl 7.3, except for glob or command pipelines, to OS/2 2.x using C Set++ has been done by <URL:mailto:wwb@wwa.com> (Bud Bach). Andreas Stuebinger <URL:mailto:stuebing@infosun.fmi.uni-passau.de> also has done an OS/2 port of Tcl (version unknown). Tcl 7.4 has been ported to OS/2 by Stefano Fornari <URL:mailto:fornari@ipvvis.unipv.it> It is available at <URL:ftp://ftp.leo.org/pub/comp/os/os2/devtools/languages/>. Illya Vaes <URL:mailto:ivaes@hr.ns.nl> is working on a port of Tk 4.1 (the Win32 version) to OS/2 Presentation Manager. He is using the native PM/GPI calls and should be able to support OS/2 2.x. It is reported that Ilya Zakharevich <URL:mailto:ilya@math.ohio-state.edu> is doing something similar, using the Developer's API extensions to directly support most of the Win32 API's under OS/2 Warp with DAX/DAPIE and Fixpack 17 installed and the Open32 manager. Contact them for more details on the progress being made. Also (see "tcl-faq/part4"), the Tcl programs/packages catalog, for the latest port locations. D. VMS A port of Tcl 7.3 and Tk 3.6 to VMS was done by Angel Li <URL:mailto:angel@flipper.rsmas.miami.edu>. The files are at <URL:ftp://mango.rsmas.miami.edu/pub/VMS-tcl/tcl73-tk36-itcl13.tar.Z> and were compressed with the Unix compress command. The pathname may be subject to change as I have seen notes from Angel Li mentioning that BLT 1.6 and the photo widget have also been ported. These were compiled on an Alpha running OpenVMS T6.1. A port of Tcl 6.3 onto VMS 5.5 was done by Wolfgang Kechel <URL:mailto:wolfgang@pr-wiesbaden.de> and Till Imanuel Panzschke. Contact them directly for assistance. A port of most of Tcl 6.7 and Tk 3.2 was done by John Kimball <URL:mailto:jkimball@src.honeywell.com> to VMS 5.5. The files are on <URL:ftp://src.honeywell.com/pub/tcl67-tk32-on-vms55.tar.Z>. A port of Tcl 7.0 and Tk 3.3 has being done to VMS on the VAX and Alpha. These are available as: <URL:ftp://src.honeywell.com/pub/vms-tcl/tcl70-tk33-on-vms55.tar.Z> or <URL:ftp://src.honeywell.com/pub/tcl70-tk33-on-vms55.tar.Z>. Gerald W. Lester <URL:mailto:gwlester@cpu.com> says the following _should_ work. If you installed the POSIX package on VMS (its free), then you should be able to configure and make tcl. To access tcl you would have to do one of the following: 1) Use the POSIX shell, or 2) do a "psx tcl". Tcl scripts would not execute directly from DCL; to execute a script foo.tcl from DCL you would have to do "psx foo.tcl". DISCLAIMER: I have not built any version of tcl under VMS POSIX, these comments are based on other work I've done with VMS POSIX. <URL:ftp://ftp.neosoft.com/pub/tcl/sorted/distrib/vms-sharable-binaries.tar.gz> is a version of Tcl/Tk for VMS built as a sharable library. It includes a dynamic module loading command. Otherwise, it matches the src.honeywell.com version. Also (see "tcl-faq/part4"), the Tcl programs/packages catalog, for the latest port locations. E. AmigaDOS Karl Lehbauer <URL:mailto:karl@sugar.NeoSoft.com> has indicated that he started a port of Tcl 3.x to the Amiga. He has a working version, but is no longer working on it. His version uses the Amiga's shared libraries and implements the "send" command. He wrote a MIDI file loader and player as well. Contact him for further details. Ty Sarna <URL:mailto:tsarna@endicor.com> has ported Tcl 6.x to the Amiga. He says: > I've ported 3.3 and several 6.x versions to the Amiga, and it can be > done in under and hour if you leave out the "Unix" functionality. > However, "Unix" functionality includes things like file I/O! Another Amiga user, <URL:mailto:colas@opossum.inria.fr> (Colas Nahaboo), mentioned that using Amiga gcc and the PD X server DaggeX and Xlibs that a port of Tk might be possible. <URL:mailto:hnm@hermes.bouw.tno.nl> (Marco van der Heiden) has completed a port to the Amiga, and suggests Amiga developers contact him by email. <URL:mailto:wulf@hotdog.ping.de> (Berndt Wulf) reports building Tcl and Tk on an Amiga system running NetBSD1.0b2, using the sources on the Walnut Creek Tcl/Tk CD-ROM. A version of Tcl is apparently available on Fish disk number 447. I do not have information concerning what version of Tcl this is. It is my understanding that the Fish disks are available on many of the Amiga Internet archive sites, one of which is <URL:ftp://ftp.cso.uiuc.edu/>. Also (see "tcl-faq/part4"), the Tcl programs/packages catalog, for the latest port locations. F. NeXT At one time, information about compiling Tcl and Tk were in the FAQs. This info appears to be gone now. Perhaps the configure information compiles out of the box. If not, please forward info to <URL:mailto:lvirden@cas.org> and I can add pointers here to you. G. Other A port to the Apple IIgs and GNO 1.1/GSOS environment is underway. A beta port of Tcl 7 has been done to VxWorks. You can find it at <URL:ftp://thor.atd.ucar.edu/pub/vx/tclvx7.0.v2.tar.gz> or a name similar (if updates have occurred). A port to GEOS was attempted, but it was found to be difficult to run there (except perhaps under the desktop platform) due to resource limits and constraints. A port of Tcl/Tk and X11R6 to OS-9 has been reported to be done by <URL:mailto:kt@keihh.hanse.de> Kei Thomasen. A different port of Tcl/Tk to OS-9 was done by <URL:mailto:oertel@port.de> Heinz-Juergen Oertel. An alpha port of Tcl 7.5 has been done to BeOS Dr7 by Jinwoo Shin <URL:mailto:jwshin@eecs.berkeley.edu>. Also (see "tcl-faq/part4"), the Tcl programs/packages catalog, for the latest port locations. ------------------------------ From: FAQ General information Subject: -IV- Other than C, what languages can talk to tcl/tk? A. Shell There are a number of interfaces which are shell-like. The first is tclsh, which comes as a sample program implementing a Tcl interpreter as a part of the Tcl distribution. Another is wish, which is a shell-like interface that is a part of the Tk package. Many of the other extensions also build interpreters as well. The tclX extension is an example - it builds an interpreter called tcl as well as one called wishx. B. C++ There is a package called Objectify which can be used to assist one in turning C++ classes into Tcl object types. If you wish to use C++ with Tcl then you must have your main() in a source file that is compiled with a C++ compiler; this will ensure that the necessary C++ pre-main initialization code is executed. You can call tcl and tk routines (or other C code) routines from C++ provided that the function prototypes avoid C++ name mangling by using the C++ linkage specification : extern "C" ... prototype ... Fortunately, tcl.h and tk.h will provide these specifications when compiled with a C++ compiler and so you can just use them directly. You can construct your main using normal tcl and tk routines, or use tkMain.c and tkAppInit.c with minor modifications. Ken Yap's patch, obtainable from <URL:ftp://ftp.neosoft.com/languages/tcl/alcatel/distrib/tk3.2forC++.patch>, is a patch that allows tk 3.2 main.c and other extension routines to be compiled with a C++ compiler. Thanks to Ken Yap <URL:mailto:ken@syd.dit.csiro.au> for this code. C++ functions and static class member functions can be used to create Tcl command using Tcl_CreateCommand in the normal way. Non-static member functions cannot be used so simply, Tcl would have to supply a "this" pointer. SWIG <URL:http://www.cs.utah.edu/%7Ebeazley/SWIG/> is another great resource for using C++ and Tcl. To quote the author: > SWIG is a code development tool created to solve real problems and > make C/C++ programming more enjoyable. Simply stated, SWIG > allows you to integrate common scripting languages such as Tcl, > Perl, Python, and Guile with programs containing collections of > functions written in C or C++. By using an interpreted scripting > language with a C program, you can do a number of cool things like: > Build a powerful interface. > Rapidly prototype new features. > Interactively debug and test your code. > Develop a graphical user interface. > Build C/C++ modules for scripting language applications. > Save lots of time--allowing you to work on the real problem. > Impress your friends. One user notes: > To contrast SWIG with Objectify - SWIG has you prepare a small interface > file that specifies what functions are to be wrapped, rather than adding > macros to your original header file. It also works with C, as well as > C++. C. Modula-3 Norman Ramsey <URL:mailto:elan.uucp!nr> says: A long time back, Eric Muller posted a Modula-3 interface to the C Tcl library. I wrote down a Modula-3/Tcl interface that used Modula-3 types rather than C types, and that used objects to build closures for commands. I wrote part of the implementation but never finished it. I have mailed copies to <URL:mailto:carroll@udel.edu>, who asked the question, and I will post them if there seems to be general interest. Also, there is an interface between Tk and Modula-3 that is a part of the Modula-3 archives on gatekeeper.dec.com, and Tcl-DP and Modula-3 have been merged. D. Eiffel <URL:mailto:stephan@cs.tu-berlin.de> (Stephan Herrmann) says: ... [the tclish package provides] the marriage of two very different principles by means of combining two programming languages into a hybrid program architecture. There are three classes for the user - tcl interpretor, tk application, and tk window. See <URL:ftp://hepunx.rl.ac.uk/pub/eiffel/tclish> for details. E. Ada <URL:mailto:dennis@dennis.cs.colorado.edu> (Dennis Heimbigner) introduced an adatcl package which gives Ada programmers access to Tcl interpreters. (See "tcl-faq/part4") for details of the package. F. Perl In the past, efforts by Dov Grobgeld <URL:mailto:dov@menora.weizmann.ac.il> and Guenther Schreiner <URL:mailto:guenther@ira.uka.de> were made to develop at least 2 Perl 4 to Tcl/Tk interfaces. More effort has occured in the Perl 5 environment, where an extension to allow Perl 5 to directly access the Tcl C API, as well as an extension to allow the ability to do Tk programming without a Tcl interpreter involved at all are available. These packages can be ftp'd from the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) - a series of ftp sites which keep the latest and greatest archives of Perl code in sync. See <URL:http://www.perl.com/perl/CPAN/CPAN.html> for a pointer to CPAN, and follow the links to find the Tcl related Perl packages. G. Prolog The package ProTcl is an interface between Prolog and Tcl/Tk. It works best with ECLiPSe, but the foreign interface of SICStus and Quintus is also provided. The interface is dynamically loaded into a Prolog process and it gives access to Tcl commands and to handling Tk events. It is also possible to call Prolog from Tcl, handle Tk events in Prolog and to pass Prolog variables back to Tcl. See <URL:http://www.ecrc.de/eclipse/html/protcl.html> for more details. H. Other A module for Python based on Tk is available - more details are available in <news:comp.lang.python> on this front. Some work relating to the Fresco CORBA interpreter has resulted in a Tcl-based interpreter which interacts with that environment. See <URL:http://www.faslab.com/fresco/HomePage.html> for more details. Tk bindings for the Dylan language are being shipped as a part of CMU's Mindy compiler for Dylan. The Sather language also has a set of classes to bind in Tk/Tcl. Duncan Sinclair <URL:mailto:sinclair@dcs.gla.ac.uk> has details of a hack into wish.c some hooks for a Tk to any language system, and has been using it for communication with functional languages such as Haskell and Lazy ML. A paper, plus sample code, is available by ftp from <URL:ftp://ftp.dcs.gla.ac.uk/pub/glasgow-fp/authors/Duncan_Sinclair/fumx.*>. The InterLanguage Unification project is a system that promotes software interoperability via interfaces. It has the ability to allow Common Lisp, ANSI C, C++, Modula 3 to interact and plans to add Python, Tcl, and GNU Emacs-Lisp shortly. Of course the Wafe application environment is designed to make it easier to do X like applications from within several languages using Tk as a basis. There are several interfaces to allow one to interface with SQL though some are specific to a database such as Oracle. There is an interpreter for Silicon Graphics machines for SGI's GL language. There is an interface to WOOL. The GNU language Guile not only has a Scheme backend, but a Tcl one as well. There are at least two interfaces to Tcl for Java. There is a Caml Light interface to Tcl/Tk. There is a commercial product which provides an interface between Objective C and Tcl. There is an interface between Oz and Tcl/Tk. There is a subset of Modula-3 with a Tk binding. There is at least one interface between Scheme and Tk. There is a binding in Gopher for Tcl/Tk. For more details on the above efforts, (see also "tcl-faq/part4"). ------------------------------ From: FAQ General information Subject: -V- What training material is available? Just a note - I don't work for any of these folk. In some cases, folk have contributed the description of their books. In most cases, I haven't even seen the book that's described. A. Books 1. Title: Obfuscated C and Other Mysteries. Author: Don Libes <URL:mailto:libes@nist.gov> Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Publication date: October 1992 ISBN: 0-471-57805-3 Price: $39.95 US WWW book information: <URL:http://www.wiley.com/compbooks/catalog/02/57805-3.html> This is not your typical programming book. This book discusses programming in the Unix environment in a humorous manner. However, specific solutions to issues are addressed. Separate chapters on Tcl and Expect are made covered. 2. Title: Tcl and the Tk Toolkit Author: John K. Ousterhout <URL:mailto:ouster@tcl.eng.sun.com> Publisher: Addison-Wesley Publication date: April 1994 Third printing: 1994 ISBN: 0-201-63337-X Pages: 480 WWW book information: <URL:http://www.aw.com/cp/Oust.html> Book's examples: <URL:ftp://ftp.smli.com/pub/tcl/book.examples.Z> The book primarily covers Tcl 7.3 and Tk 3.6. A German translation of this book, titled _Tcl und Tk_, with the ISBN of 3-89319-793-1, is also available. While the book is a good intro to Tcl, it's basis on the older Tk makes it difficult to use for some types of Tk development. In regards to questions about new revisions to the book, John has indicated that a new revision would be unlikely to appear before Tcl 8.x is released. 3. Title: X User Tools Author: Linda Mui and Valier Quercia Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. 103A Morris Street Sebastopol, CA US 95472 Publication date: November 1994 ISBN: 1-56592-019-8 Pages: 856 Price: $49.95 US WWW book information: <URL:http://www.ora.com/catalog/xtools/> Chapter 30 covers writing tools in Tcl/Tk. Several Tcl and Tk tools are available on the CD-ROM. However, since it is more than 2 years old, it is a rather outdated version of Tcl/Tk. 4. Title: Exploring Expect Subtitle: A Tcl-Based Toolkit for Automating Interactive Applications Author: Don Libes <URL:mailto:libes@nist.gov> Publisher: O'Reilly and Associates, Inc Publication date: December 1994 ISBN: 1-56592-092-2 Pages: 602 WWW book information: <URL:http://www.ora.com/catalog/expect/> Book's examples: <URL:ftp://ftp.cmd.nist.gov/pub/expect/expect.tar.gz> Errata: <URL:ftp://ftp.cme.nist.gov/pub/expect/errata> Email orders: <URL:mailto:order@ora.com> HTTP orders: <URL:http://nearnet.gnn.com/gnn/bus/ora/ordering/> Credit card orders (M-F 6am-6pm PST): (800) 889-8969 / (707) 829-0515 Mailing Address: O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. 103A Morris Street Sebastopol, CA US 95472 For all of you who thought that the Expect man page was too long and too terse at the same time, this book provides relief. "Exploring Expect" is an introduction and comprehensive tutorial to Expect. Numerous examples are provided and explained, demonstrating how to save you time and money. Example topics include how to write patterns, do signal handling, use Expect as a telnetable daemon, and use Expect with Tk and other Tcl extensions. The book also includes an innovative introduction to Tcl - if you've had trouble using Tcl before, all of a sudden, it will make a lot more sense. And while Exploring Expect concentrates primarily on using Expect with Tcl, programmers attempting to automate interactive programs using C, Perl, Python, or any other language will find this book helpful because many of the concepts underlying Expect-like programming are common to all languages. Exploring Expect remains in the first edition. There have only been a few corrections and updates so they have been easily incorporated in new printings. The last time Don had to make any corrections was in the third printing. Exploring Expect was originally based on Tcl 7.3 and 7.4 alpha. However, the book correctly describes 7.5 as well. Almost all of the recent changes in Tcl were under the cover - which is not the focus of Don's book, so it is still accurate. Interesting story time: Don only needed to make one change in the book when Tcl 7.4 came out of alpha. Tcl 7.4 added checking for overflow which was something his random number generator didn't like. So he changed the constants in the 2nd printing to avoid this problem. Later, Ousterhout got enough grief from people that he later changed it back. So it turned out that Don really hadn't needed to make any changes to the book after all. The book was also based on Tk 3.6 and Tk 4 alpha. Don's book doesn't go into enough depth on Tk that this really matters - in fact, he only needed to mention a difference between Tk 3 and Tk 4 at one point. So the text is still accurate. He does, however, have a lot of real code and some of the Tk examples no longer work quite right because of the way bind changed. However, all of those examples come with the Expect tar file and they are Tk4-ized, so it shouldn't be a significant problem. The text describing the examples is still correct. Note that a new version of Expect is in testing for Tcl 7.6. To get it check on the WWW home page for the beta version of Expect. The WWW home for Expect is <URL:http://expect.nist.gov/>. 5. Title: How to Manage Your Network Using SNMP Subtitle: The Networking Management Practicum Authors: Marshall T. Rose <URL:mailto:mrose@dbc.mtview.ca.us> and Keith McCloghrie Publisher: Prentice Hall Publication date: January 1995 ISBN: 0-13-141517-4. Price: $52.00 US _How to Manage your Network..." describes a Tcl-based SNMP API, and contains several example programs. 6. Title: MH and xmh Subtitle: E-mail for users and programmers 3rd edition Author: Jerry Peek Publisher: O'REILLY AND ASSOCIATES Publication date: April 1995 ISBN: 1-56592-093-7 Pages: 782 Price: $34.95 US WWW book information: <URL:http://www.ora.com/catalog/mh3/noframes.html> Besides the obvious also covered the Tk application exmh. According to the publisher, this product has been discontinued. 7. Title: Practical Programming in Tcl and Tk Author: Brent Welch <URL:mailto:bwelch@eng.sun.com> *First edition: Publisher: Prentice Hall Publication date: May 1995 ISBN: 0-13-182007-9 Pages: 400 WWW book information: <URL:http://www.prenhall.com/013/182006/18200-6.html> Book's examples: <URL:ftp://ftp.prenhall.com/pub/software/welch/tkbook.tar> Errata: <URL:http://www.sunlabs.com/%7Ebwelch/book/>. This book discusses Tcl 7.4 and Tk 4.0. It features about 5000 lines of Tcl and 2400 lines of C code, which come with the book on a floppy. The book describes and summaries all the Tcl and Tk commands and widgets. There are longer examples that put together small applications. The sections on C programmer are not intended to be complete references to the C interfaces - use the man pages for that information. A draft of the book - except for the index - is available as <URL:ftp://parcftp.xerox.com/pub/sprite/welch/tkbook.ps.gz>. Also, see <URL:http://www.sunlabs.com/%7Ebwelch/bwelch.html> for links to pages about the book. The first edition of the book is a good intro to Tcl, the next edition will makes it easier to use with the more recent Tk/Tcl features such as megawidgets, packages, etc. *Second edition: Author: Brent Welch <URL:mailto:welch@acm.org> Publisher: Prentice Hall Publication date: June 1997 ISBN: 0-13-616830-2 Price: $42.00 US This updated edition describes Tcl 7.6 and Tk 4.2, with some references to a few features that will appear in later versions of Tcl. 8. Title: UNIX Test Tools and Benchmarks Subtitle: Methods and Tools to Design, Develop, and Execute Functional, Structural Reliability, and Regression Tests, 1/e Author: Rodney C. Wilson Publisher: PTR Prentice Hall Publication date: July 1995 ISBN: 0-13-125634-3 Pages: 340 Price: $47.00 US This book covers in-depth discussions of state of the art testing strategies, technologies, and benchmarking products. Among the testing tools covered are expect, Tcl, Tk and many others. 9. Title: Linux: Configuration and Installation Book/CD Package Author: Patrick Volkerding, Kevin Reichard Publisher: Henry Holt & Co. Publication date: August 1995 ISBN: 1558284265 Pages: 450 Price: $39.95 US Deals with Linux administration. Has a chapter on programming using C, C++, Perl and Tcl/Tk. Comes with a CD-ROM. 10. Title: Tcl and Tk reference manual Editors: Donald Barnes, Marc Ewing <URL:mailto:marc@redhat.com>, Erik Troan Publisher: Red Hat Software, Inc. Publication date: September 1995 ISBN: 1-885329-08-3 Pages: 645 LoC: QA76.73.T44 Red Hat Software 25 Sylvan Road South Wesport, CT 06880 (800) 546-7274 (203) 454-2582 (203) 454-5500 (FAX) E-mail: <URL:mailto:sales@redhat.com> Price: $24.95 US A printed copy of the Tcl 7.4/Tk 4.0 man pages, along with a table of contents, standard index, and permutated index has been published. 11. Title: The Visualization Toolkit Subtitle: An Object-Oriented Approach to 3D Graphics Author: Will Schroeder, Ken Martin, Bill Lorensen Publisher: PTR Prentice Hall Publication date: January 1996 ISBN: 0-13-199837-4 Price: $59.95 US WWW book information: <URL:http://www.prenhall.com/013/199836/ptr/19983-6.html> The book contains software and information to assist you in transforming data into 3D graphics. The book covers key algorithms, modeling, and techniques for various types of visualization. The CD-ROM contains 400 megabytes of software, data images, and documentation. The software runs on Unix, Windows 95, and Windows NT. 12. Title: Graphical Applications with Tcl & Tk Author: Eric F. Johnson Publisher: M&T Books Publication date: February 1996 ISBN: 1-55851-471-6 Pages: 374 Price: $39.95 US WWW book info: <URL:http://www.pconline.com/%7Eerc/tclbook.htm> <URL:http://www.mandt.com/tcltk/tcltoc.html> The paperback book covers Tcl 7.5b1 and Tk 4.1b1. It focuses on creating and debugging cross-platform graphical applications. Windows and Unix development is covered. The book comes with a CD-ROM containing Tcl/Tk sources, a binary Tcl/Tk version for Windows, the book's source code and Tcl freeware, such as ObjectTcl, Tix4.0, TkSteal, adaTCL7.3, BLT-1.8, dlwish, debuggers, Spectcl-01a, GuiBuilder, XF 2.3, and other things such as expect, games, graphics, internet related items, media, etc. 13. Title: Bots and Other Internet Beasties Book/CD Package Author: Joseph Williams Publisher: SAMS Publication date: May 1996 ISBN: 1575210169 Pages: 500 Price: $49.99 US Book covers internet robots, spiders, worms, and other agents. Covers software written in Tcl/Tk. 14. Title: RedHat Linux Unleashed Book/CD Package Author: Kamran Husain, et al Publisher: SAMS Publication date: July 1996 ISBN: 0672309629 Pages: 1040 Price: $49.99 US Book covers the Linux OS/Environment. This includes Tcl/Tk as well as many other subjects. 15. Title: Tricks of the Java Programming Gurus Author: Glenn Vanderburg Publisher: SAMS.NET Publication date: July 1996 ISBN: 1-57521-102-5 Price: $39.99 US WWW information: <URL:http://www.mcp.com/samsnet/books/102-5/102-5.html> This book is primarily a book about advanced Java techniques. However, there's a chapter on the ability to embed a Tcl interpreter into a Java application using a native method library under Unix, as well as info on ways that Tcl might be useful for a Java application. 16. Title: The Visual TCL Handbook, 1/e Author: David Young <URL:mailto:david@inforef.com> Publisher: Prentice Hall Publication date: August 1996 ISBN: 0-13-461674-X Pages: 400 Price: $42.00 US A comprehensive guide to Visual TCL. This book leads reader from basic graphical user interface development concepts to meaningful application development. The book focuses on the TCLX and VT extensions, addressing many fundamental TCL topics. The entire TCL language is documented in a separate Commands section. Comes with a CD-ROM that includes SGI, Solaris, HP-UX, AIX and Unixware versions of Visual Tcl. 17. Title: Running LINUX Author: Matt Welsh & Lar Kaufman Publisher: O'REILLY AND ASSOCIATES Publication date: August 1996 ISBN: 1-56592-151-8 Pages: 650 Price: $29.95 US WWW book information: <URL:http://www.ora.com/catalog/runux2/noframes.html> Deals with Linux administration. Has a chapter on programming using C, C++, Perl, Tcl/Tk. A companion product containing a CD-ROM is available. 18. Title: Understanding OSF DCE 1.1 For AIX and OS/2 Author: Rolf Lendenmann Publisher: PTR Prentice Hall Publication date: August 1996 ISBN: 0-13-493750-3 Pages: 312 Price: $36.00 US This book teachs OSF's Distributed Computing Environment. It covers many aspects of DCE and teaches how to create control scripts and RPC programs using Tcl, RPCs, and threads. 19. Title: LINUX Companion: The Essential Guide for Users and System Administrators, 1/e Author: Mark F. Komarinski Publisher: PTR Prentice Hall Publication date: August 1996 ISBN: 0-13-231838-5 Pages: 208 Price: $24.95 US This book covers a lot of information about Linux. Chapter 11 is the development tools chapter, and gcc, g++, Perl and Tcl/Tk are covered. 20. Title: Beginning Linux Programming Author: Neil Matthew, Richard Stones Publisher: Wrox Press Ltd. Publication date: September 1996 ISBN: 1-874416-68-0 Price: $36.95 US Pages: 700 Introduction to various types of programming tools. Includes a chapter on programming in Tcl/Tk. Supposedly it will be followed by Instant, Revolutionary, and Master Class editions. Source code supposedly available on WWW. 21. Title: CGI Bible Author: Ed Titel <URL:mailto:etittel@lanw.com> Mark Gaither <URL:mailto:markg@hal.com> Sebastian Hassinger <URL:mailto:singe@outer.net> Mike Erwin <URL:mailto:mikee@outer.net> Publisher: IDG Books Worldwide Publication date: December 1996 ISBN: 0-76458-016-7 Pages: 618 Price: $ 49.99 US WWW information: <URL:http://www.idgbooks.com/database/book_result.msql?isbn=0-7645-8016-7> This book is a paperback with CD-ROM. It covers HTTP and HTML briefly, SGML and HTML DTDs (and validation), HTML 3.0, CGI (including the various languages which can be used, mentioning Tcl), then proceeds on to the topic of the design of CGI applications (using perl 4 - shudder). 22. Title: Tcl & Tk Reference Card Publisher: Specialized Systems Consultants Publication date: December 1996 ISBN: 0-91615-180-8 Price: $4.50 US No other information available. 23. Title: Tcl Reference Card Author: Michael K. Johnson Publisher: Specialized Systems Consultants Publication date: December 1996 ISBN: 0-91615-186-7 Price: $3.00 US No other information available. 24. Title: Tk Reference Card Author: Michael K. Johnson Publisher: Specialized Systems Consultants Publication date: December 1996 ISBN: 0-91615-185-9 Price: $3.00 US No other information available. 25. Title: Linux Programming Author: Patrick Volkerding, Eric Foster-Johnson, Kevin Reichard Publisher: M&T Books Publication date: January 1997 ISBN: 1-55828-507-5 Price: $39.96 US This book and CD-ROM covers every major programming tool available for Linux, including Tk. 26. Title: Mastering Regular Expressions Author: Jeffrey Friedl <URL:mailto:jfriedl@omron.co.jp> Publisher: O'Reilly & Assoc. Publication date: January, 1997 ISBN: 1-56592-257-3 Pages: 368 Price: $29.95 US WWW information: <URL:http://www.ora.com/catalog/regex/> <URL:http://enterprise.ic.gc.ca/%7Ejfriedl/regex/> This book explains regular expressions in general, and then covers a number of different tools explaining specialized variations. Tcl is one of the tools covered in it's own chapter. 27. Title: Cookbook for Serving the Internet: UNIX Version, 1/e Author: Philip E. Bourne Publisher: PTR Prentice Hall Publication date: February 1997 ISBN: 0-13-519992-1 Pages: 336 Price: $29.95 US This book is intended to help one set up their own internet information server. Covers where to find the software tools needed, how to design the structure of the information server, how to decide what information to upload, plan the use of graphics, how to write interactive forms, when to do custom programming in Perl or Tcl, etc. 28. Title: CGI Developer's Resource: Web Programming in Tcl and Perl Authors: J.M. Ivler <URL:mailto:ivler@i-xpress.com> Kamran Husain Publisher: Prentice Hall Computer Books Publication date: March 1997 ISBN: 0-13-727751-2 Pages: 624 Price: $49.95 US <URL:http://www.net-quest.com/%7Eivler/cgibook/> This book is a paperback with a CD-ROM. It contains complete program examples. The write up describes this book as covering a methodology of the analysis, design and coding of enterprise-wide CGI scripts in both Tcl and Perl. All source from the book, as well as valuable programming tools, are contained on the CD-ROM. 29. Title: Tcl/Tk for Dummies (For Dummies) Author: Timothy Webster Publisher: IDG Books Worldwide Publication date: April 1997 ISBN: 0-76450-152-6 Price: $24.99 US Another one of the series of programming books. 30. Title: Effective Tcl: Writing Better Programs in Tcl and Tk Author: Mark Harrison and Michael J. McLennan <URL:mailto:mmclennan@lucent.com> Publisher: Addison-Wesley Publication date: May 1997 ISBN: 0-20-163474-0 Price: $38.68 US This one is not yet available. The synopsis from the publisher is: Take the next step with Tcl/Tk development with this practical programming style guide. The Tcl scripting language and the Tk toolkit together create a programming environment for creating graphical user interfaces under the X Window System and MS Windows 95/NT. This book offers a wealth of practical information on how to exploit the full potential of this remarkable programming environment. 31. Title: Database Backed Web Sites Author: Philip Greenspun <URL:mailto:philg@martigny.ai.mit.edu> Publisher: Ziff-Davis Press Publication date: May 1997 ISBN: 1-56276-530-2 Price: $29.95 US WWW site: <URL:http://www-swiss.ai.mit.edu/wtr/dead-trees/> <URL:http://demo.webho.com/> A new book on how to think about your Web publishing philosophy, make money (shudder), and build RDBMS-backed Web sites. This book will contain lots of examples of using the AOLserver, Tcl and RDBMS. 32. Title: Tcl/Tk Tools Author: Mark Harrison Publisher: O'Reilly & Assoc. Publication date: June 1997 ISBN: 1-56592-218-2 Pages: 900 Price: $49.95 US WWW information: <URL:http://www.ora.com/catalog/tcltools/> This one is will be a paperback, with CD-ROM. The book covers the various Tcl extensions such as BLT, ET, expect, GroupKit, [incr Tcl], [incr Tk], [incr Widgets], MTtcl, Oratcl, Sybtcl, TCL-DP, TclX, Tix, TKReplay, Tree, TSIPP, and many other topics, such as info on configuration and debugging Tcl/Tk. Binaries for many popular UNIX platforms, as well as source, appear on the CD-ROM. 33. Title: Mobile Agents: Explanations and Example Authors: William R. Cockayne <URL:mailto:cockayne@acm.org> and Michael Zyda <URL:mailto:zyda@siggraph.org> Publisher: Manning Publications ISBN: 1-884777-36-8 Web pages: <URL:http://www.manning.com/Cockayne/> Includes CD-ROM Book covers the technology to create mobile agents via various mechanisms, including Agent Tcl, Telescript, Ara, Aglest Workbench. Includes software to allow the reader to create and use mobile agents on the internet. 34. Title: The Pattern Recognition Basis of Artificial Intelligence Author: Donald Tveter <URL:mailto:drt@mcs.com> Publisher: IEEE Publication date: August 1997 ISBN: 0-8186-7796-1 Pages: 350 Price: $46.00 US WWW information: <URL:http://www.computer.org/cspress/catalog/bp07796.htm> Examples: <URL:http://www.mcs.net/%7Edrt/basisofai.html> An introduction to artificial intelligence. At least one of the software packages described in the book is written in Tcl/Tk and is available for Unix, DOS and Windows 3.x. 35. Title: Interactive Web Applications With Tcl/Tk Authors: Michael Doyle Hattie Schroeder Publisher: Ap Professional Publication date: August 1998 ISBN: 0122215400 Price: $39.95 US Paperback with CD-ROM. 36. Title: Tcl Tk Workshop Proceedings, Toronto, Ontario, Canada Subtitle: NR Edition Publisher: Usenix Assoc. Publication date: July 1995 ISBN: 1880446723 Price: $34.00 US 37. Title: Professional Java Fundamentals Authors: Shy Cohen Publisher: Wrox Press ISBN: 1-861000-38-3 Pages: 500 Price: $39.95 Describes the shell, unix, terminal and curses environment, a variety of Java issues, and Tcl programming. Why? I have no idea. xx. Title: Subtitle: Authors: Publisher: Publication date: Nth Printing: ISBN: Pages: Price: WWW book information: Book's examples: Errata: 99. Rumored to be in the works: International Thomson Publishing is producing a new series of books called "The Road to ...". One of these will be "The Road to Tcl/Tk". It will be a bit like a travel guide, covering the essentials, hints and tips, with longer worked examples. The author will be passing on the experience gained while writing Tcl/Tk. It will be asssuming Tcl 8.0. Other documentation includes: 1. Many people learn Tcl/Tk from reading the 'man' pages. These files, a part of the source code distribution, are mentioned in Dr. Ousterhout's book as 'the reference manual'. If the person who installed Tcl/Tk at your site did a build of the executables and then ran the 'make install' step described in the source code distribution, the man pages are probably installed on your system in a directory. Contact your system adminstrator for more details. Also, (see "tcl-faq/part2") for a number of WWW resources which provide additional information about many aspects of Tcl and it's extensions. See the other FAQs mentioned in this document for additional help, pointers to software examples, and other resources from which you can draw help. For instance, (see "tcl-faq/bibliography/part1") for details of published books, magazine and journal articles, proceedings papers, and thesises relating to the Tcl family of languages. (See "tcl-faq/commercial-uses/part3") for details of classes offered commercially. 2. For a list of free resources, (see "tcl-faq/part3") which has an entry for a variety of resources. 3. Computerized Processes Unlimited has a combined Tcl/Tclx reference manual for sale. (See "commercial-uses/part3") for more information. 4. The USENIX Association <URL:http://www.usenix.org/> not only sponsers various conferences and workshops of possible interest to the Tcl and Tk communities, but also offers the proceedings from those sessions for sale to members. See <URL:http://www.usenix.org/cgi-bin/lookbib.pl?raw=false&TERMS=tcl> for an example of just some of the articles that have been published by the USENIX Association. 5. Title: Tcl/Tk Documents Author: J. Ousterhout Publisher: Northside Copy Central 1862 Euclid Berkeley, CA Voice: (510) 849-9600 Price: approx. $15-$20 US 6. Title: Tcl/Tk Reference Author: J. Ousterhout <URL:mailto:john.ousterhout@eng.sun.com> Publisher: Cheap Bytes P.O. Box 2714 Lodi, CA 95241 U.S.A. Pages: 700 Price: $19.00 US WWW book information: <URL:http://www.cheapbytes.com/> This contains the complete man pages for Tcl 7.4/Tk 4.0, along with two indexes. 7. Title: Porting to Java Author: New Riders Development Group Publisher: NEW RIDER'S PRESS Publication date: 1996 ISBN: 1562056026 Price: $45.00 US The book includes applet converter scripts and covers Tcl/Tk, C, C shell and Perl conversion techniques. It explains usage for each Java class distributed by SUN in the Java Developer's Toolkit. I can't find any specifics on whether this actually was published or not 8. Title: Distributed objects : neural network architecture rendered in Tcl-DP and Tcl widgets Author: Mark A. Stewart Publisher: Thesis (M.S.) University of Alabam at Birmingham Publication date: 1995 LoC: QA76.27.T41 The topic is computer network architectures and neural networks. 9: Title: TCL and TK Reference Manual Author: Barnes Publisher: Linux System Labs ISBN: 1-88532-908-3 No other information available. 10. Title: Tcl Author: Kelvin Corocran Publisher: Small Pr Distribution Publication date: December 1989 ISBN: 1-85298-010-9 Price: $8.00 US No other information available. 11. Title: Tcl and the Tk Toolkit Author: John K. Ousterhout Publisher: Specialized Systems Consultants Publication date: December 1996 ISBN: 9997887492 No other information available. 12. Title: TCL/TK Unleashed; With CDROM Publisher: Sams Publication date: Sept 1997 ISBN: 0672311437 Price: $49.99 US No other information available. --- B. Training courses, etc. 1. (See "commercial-uses/part3") for information about training courses by Computerized Processes Unlimited, NeoSoft Communications Services, and ATT training groups. 2. The first Tcl local users' group has formed in the Dallas Texas area. The group will be known as "Tcl Dallas" or "Tcl'D" for short. "Tcl Dallas" is a non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of the Tcl language along with its many extensions. As a local users group, "Tcl Dallas" supports the regional Tcl developer community by hosting special events and providing a local forum for the discussion of Tcl issues. For further information, see their WWW page at <URL:http://www.tcltk.com/TclDallas/>. 3. An IRC channel dedicated to the discussion of Tcl/Tk has been created. #TCL has been created by Noob Saibot <URL:mailto:noob@america.com>. 4. The course "The Internet Introduction to Tcl/Tk" is being offered over the WWW. Cost is $325, and covers a series of learning modules, supplementary materials, and access to an e-mail mailing list on which the instructor and fellow students correspond. See <URL:http://www.skillshare.com/skillshare/dr/tcl-intro.html> for more details. Contact J Adrian Zimmer <URL:mailto:jazimmer@acm.org> to register. The course can also be taught on-site or via telephone conferencing. Again, contact Adrian for details. 5. The course "Programming Using Tcl/Tk" will be held at the PG&E Learning Center of UC Berkeley Extension from Tuesday, September 3 to Tuesday, October 1 (6:30pm to 9:30pm). You learn the basics of scripting in Tcl, Tcl extensions for network programming (particularly Expect and TclDii), user interface construction with Tk, advanced Tk features such as event handling and focus management, getting the most out to the powerful text and canvas widgets, extending Tcl and Tk with C or C++ programming, and more. A series of applications are described, and you are ncouraged to experiment on your own PC, Macintosh, or UNIX/X11 system. Prerequisite: An introductory course in computer programming. Fee: $325 Instructor: Ernest Friedman-Hill, Ph.D., a Senior Member of the Technical Staff in the Scientific Computing Department at Sandia National Laboratories. He is currently researching "smart agents" in scientific and engineering computing. More info?: send mail to <URL:mailto:course@garnet.berkeley.edu> --- C. Time-related seminars, conferences, workshops. 1. There have been, in the past, seminars and BOFs/SIGs at Usenix, the MIT X conference, and other conferences taught by John Ousterhout and others on Tcl and Tk. (See also "tcl-faq/part2") for the URL to the slides from the most recent of these presentations by John. If you are planning on attending a conference, check for these types of activies, as well as sessions dealing with applicatons of Tcl/Tk. Let the others in <URL:news:comp.lang.tcl> know about the event so that others might also attend. For that matter, consider scheduling a Tcl/Tk event yourself if you are so inclined! 2. University of Maryland Baltimore County has been holding a course titled CMSC491C - Special Topics in Computer Science - Scripting Languages. This is an introduction to scripting languages with an emphasis on Perl and Tcl, but also mentioning sed, awk, etc. Taught by Bob Tarr. Call (410) 455-2336 (Continuing Education Department) to sign up as a special non-degree candidate. Info provided by <URL:mailto:finin@cs.umbc.edu> (Tim Finin). 3. The Cooperative Research Centre for Advanced Computational Systems, at the Australian National University, Canberra Australia, has been offering Introductory and Advanced Tcl/Tk courses. The first course, "An Introduction To the Tcl Language and Tk Toolkit", was held from 29th November to 1st December 1995. Courses will be conducted on a regular basis. For the latest information, see <URL:http://pastime.anu.edu.au/tcl/Courses.html>. 4. CPU Tcl / Expect training Class Public offering of a class in Tcl and Expect, held the week of October 28, 1996. The location is Metairie, LA (a suburb of New Orleans). The class is a five day course. Details can be found at <URL:http://web.cpu.com/homepage/cnslttr.htm> or by email to <URL:mailto:ktr@cpu.com> (Kim T. Richert). 5. The Fifth annual Tcl/Tk Workshop will be held July 14-17, 1997 in Boston, Massachusetts, US. See <URL:http://www.usenix.org/tcl97> for details on submission instructions, deadlines, etc. The deadlines are in early April, 1997. 6. See <URL:http://www.tcltk.com/training/> for details of several Tcl/Tk and [incr Tcl] classes being conducted by Bell Labs Training. During 1997 the classes "Building Applications with Tcl/Tk" and "Object-Oriented Programming with [incr Tcl]" are planned in Bethlehem, PA (March 3-5 and March 6-7, 1997), Murray Hill, NJ (March 17-19 and March 20-21, 1997), Lisle, IL (April 7-9 and April 10-11, 1997), and Atlanta, GA (April 28-30, May 1-2, 1997). Contact Lynn Rogers at (610)712-2333 for more details. 7. CPU is offering an "Introduction to Programming in Tcl/Tk" during the week of 04-Aug-97. For more information, see <URL:http://www.cpu.com/schedule.htm> or send mail to <URL:mailto:info@cpu.com>. ------------------------------ From: FAQ General information Subject: -VI- Where do I report problems, bugs, or enhancements There are two alternatives for reporting bugs and problems. The first is the Usenet news group <URL:news:comp.lang.tcl>, an unmoderated Usenet newsgroup, created for the discussion of the Tcl programming language and tools that use some form of Tcl, such as the Tk toolkit for the X window system, Extended Tcl, and expect. Please note that postings of source code to <URL:news:comp.lang.tcl> does not automatically get archived on <URL:ftp://ftp.neosoft.com/pub/tcl/> (in the User Contributions archive site) - if you want your code to be available, you will need to make arrangements with the folks there to have it added. See elsewhere in the FAQ for more details on the user contrib archive site. The second alternative would be to report problems, suggestions, new ideas, etc. directly to the author. Email to <URL:mailto:John.Ousterhout@eng.sun.com> (John Ousterhout) will reach the author of Tcl and Tk; to find the email address of the authors of other Tcl/Tk based programs, (see "tcl-faq/part4"), and (see "tcl-faq/part5"). Note that John has asked folks to PLEASE use <URL:news:comp.lang.tcl> for public communications. When you report bugs, be sure you mention what hardware and operating system you are using (e.g. Pentium 100 mhz running Linux version x.y.z), what version of tcl/tk you are using (e.g. Tcl 7.6p2/Tk 4.2p2), what extensions you have added (e.g. tclX, dash, plus, itcl, tix, and blt), and any local modifications you have made. Then, provide if possible either a small piece of code, or a URL (e.g. <URL:ftp://ftp.myhost.com/some/path/stuff.tcl> ) to some code which demonstrates the problem. Either have the code explicitly mention here's what I thought would happen, or in your description mention that. Also, if something used to work, mention which configuration you used. Most of all, be sure to provide an email address that is valid, and be sure to watch the usenet newsgroups for responses, since seldom will folk send private email on a matter which likely is of public interest. On the other hand, if you DO get private email replies, remember to post a summary of what works to the group, so that future generations can benefit from your learning experience. If something in Tcl fails, don't just say "Tcl_Eval() fails" (or whatever function) but tell folk specifically what type of core dump occured, or what error codes were returned, what values were left in $errorCode and interp->result, and so on. If you have software from which you think someone might benefit (either a program, function, extension, or simple example), or you have a document, magazine or journal article, thesis, project, or even commercial advertisement, be sure to let the appropriate folks know. There are FAQ maintainers for each of these areas as well as a <URL:news:comp.lang.tcl.announce> newsgroup you can use. Source code postings of reasonable length (and reasonable has been pretty large) are acceptable, BUT postings are _not_ automatically archived on the neosoft ftp site. It is always worthwhile to submit your contributions directly to the ftp site so more folk in the future can benefit from your experience. To make announcements to the <URL:news:comp.lang.tcl.announce> newsgroup, send email with the details to <URL:mailto:tcl-announce@mitchell.org>. Also, feel free to just point folk at your own ftp site or WWW site if you have one which can be used. Folk should not feel compelled to keep everything on one site - but should feel free to ftp contributions there if they wish. ------------------------------ End of comp.lang.tcl Frequently Asked Questions (1/5) ***************************************************** -- Larry W. Virden INET: lvirden@cas.org <URL:http://www.teraform.com/%7Elvirden/> <*> O- "We are all Kosh." Unless explicitly stated to the contrary, nothing in this posting should be construed as representing my employer's opinions. [[Send Tcl/Tk announcements to tcl-announce@mitchell.org Send administrivia to tcl-announce-request@mitchell.org Announcements archived at http://www.xpi.com/tcl/comp.lang.tcl.announce/ The primary Tcl/Tk archive is ftp://ftp.neosoft.com/pub/tcl/ ]]
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Last Update July 11 1997 @ 03:30 AM