From lvirden@cas.org Fri Apr 24 06:33:45 1998 Received: from srv01s4.cas.org (srv01s4.cas.org [134.243.50.9]) by Starbase.NeoSoft.COM (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id GAA04260 for ; Fri, 24 Apr 1998 06:33:44 -0500 (CDT) Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 07:33:11 -0400 From: lvirden@cas.org (Larry W. Virden, x2487) Message-Id: <9804240733.AA10542@cas.org> Subject: Re: MacTcl/Tk In-Reply-To: of Thu, 23 Apr 1998 13:43:53 -0700 (PDT) To: mactcl@tclconsortium.org Status: RO On Thu, 23 Apr 1998, Greg Dunn wrote: > Pardon me if this sounds a bit testy, but: hopefully *someone* > will keep an eye on the progress of Tcl so that Mac Tcl/Tk won't > fall too far behind in the intervening period? I understand that > Scriptics has to make money, so they won't be maintaining all this > free software just for grins, but... That's what this mailing list is for. Folk, I hope I don't step on too many toes when I say that it's time for Tcl to move from the attitude that 'someone else is going to "do it"' to 'what can I do to help'. I've watched in frustration (and not too quietly, as those of you who've hung around the various groups in the Tcl community are unfortunately aware) as people have sat for the past few years complaining that tcl does this, or doesn't do that, or includes this or doesn't include that. There's no reason my Mac Tcl has to fall behind at all. I mean, John doesn't support VMS or OS/2, and yet those platforms have evangelists who spend a lot of their own, free, time making sure that the tools they prefer to use work on the platform of choice for them. If there are indeed Mac programmers who _prefer_ to use Tcl on the Mac, then I don't see any reason why anyone would care _what_ scriptics does. Let me give you another example. Look at the Plus patches, or NeoTcl. Here's two more cases where folk spend their own time patching bugs, putting together distributions, etc. and have no direct connection to the core team. Or, if you want to look outside the Tcl world, look at MacPerl, and how a core team work to keep a version of the software working for the Mac. It goes on and on. If you try to build a development model based on the concept that just one person's code is 'authority' you take a lot of chances - and Tcl has in the past few months moved into one of the chancy areas - where the sponser of the language realizes that he wants/needs/must/has decided to focus attention on another area for a while. There's nothing wrong with that. I am happy for John and the others at Scriptics. In fact, it appears that a similar situation has developed at Lucent with Michael and the incr tcl team. Time and energies have to be redirected at times to keep businesses running, or attend to family situations, or just to hibernate ... In any case, in my opinion, the community has several alternatives. They can sit and groan. They can leave to go to some other language. They can jump in and take over the effort of debugging, extending, enhancing, extending and applying the language. They can limp along with what they have. While it becomes a choice for each one of us in the community, I am holding my breath in anticipation for the trend of the Tcl community. Now is the time for all good men and women to come to the aid of their language! The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog - no, that was a different assignment. Anyways, you get my drift... -- Larry W. Virden INET: lvirden@cas.org <*> O- "We are all Kosh." Unless explicitly stated to the contrary, nothing in this posting should be construed as representing my employer's opinions.