Xotcl December 2006

xotcl@alice.wu.ac.at

6 participants
4 discussions

ANN: ActiveTcl 8.4.14.0 and 8.5.0.0b6 now available
by Jeff Hobbs 12 Dec '06

12 Dec '06

ActiveState is pleased to announce the release of ActiveTcl 8.4.14.0 and 8.5.0.0 Beta 6, the quality-assured distribution of Tcl, available for AIX, HP-UX, Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris and Windows. New in ActiveTcl 8.4.14.0: * Mac OS X distribution is now a Universal binary * Tcl/Tk core updated to 8.4.14 * Teacup client of the TEApot repository system added * Updated: - OraTcl 4.4 - Sqlite 3.3.8 - Tcllib 1.9 - Tile 0.7.8 - Tklib 0.4.1 - XOTcl 1.5.3 - Bwidget 1.8 - Thread 2.6.5 (Windows, OS X only) New in ActiveTcl 8.5.0.0 Beta 6: * Mac OS X distribution is now a Universal binary * Tcl/Tk core updated to 8.5a5 * Teacup client of the TEApot repository system added To download ActiveTcl 8.4.14.0, click here: http://www.ActiveState.com/ActiveTcl/download For more information or to download the 8.5 beta, click here: http://www.ActiveState.com/ActiveTcl Enjoy! The Tcl Team, ActiveState http://www.ActiveState.com

3 4

AW: [Xotcl] Interested in OO for tcl.
by mail＠xdobry.de 04 Dec '06

04 Dec '06

About complexity of XOTcl. Many of XOTcl features are only interesting for special scenarios such as OO-frameworks or wrapping techniques. For OO-Beginners these XOTcl-Features might be not interesting: - method forwarding - filters - meta classes - slots - mixins - assertions, pre/post condition - non positional arguments - object aggregation I have ordered the features from most advenced to quite practical in my opionion. Although I have written many lines of XOTcl code I have rare used filters (only for debugging and IDE features) and never method forwarding. I have also never implemented my own meta class. Mixins can be practical to avoid big class hierarchies or in some special object lifecycle scenarios. But I need some times to figure out when to use mixins. Object aggregation is very usefull. Also antother OO-Languages have some such specials features. Examples for Java: - anonym classes - generics - dynamic proxy - reflection - interfaces - abstract classes So you can use successful XOTcl without understanding some of its features. The practical advice is to start with XOTcl and learn some additional features only If you feel you need it. I think that it is historical reason that in XOTcl tutorials there is strong focus on new features of OO. The authors wanted to describe new innovations for known problems in OO. But these problems of OO are apparent only in bigger OO-Project and can be understood only by experienced OO-Programmers. XOTcl has academic background, so the innovations are quite important. But in comparison with another academic project it is practical usable for industry needs and standards. On the other hand features like filters and mixins can be very useful to modify or extend system without to complete redesign it. It helps to modify the system dynamically. But you will never have such problems at the beginning of the project or by small projects. So you will probably appreciate XOTcl in cases when other OO-Systems will let you down. I use many OO-languages professional like: Java, C++, C# but some additional features of XOTcl, which I miss by Java and C#, and some base characteristic of Tcl are for me perhaps the only reason why I still use XOTcl/Tcl. Artur Trzewik

4 4

Interested in OO for tcl.
by Salazar, German P21322 04 Dec '06

04 Dec '06

Well, I have been doing some programming in tcl and after recognizing that my second edition book is rather old, I acquired Practical Programming in Tcl and Tk, 4th Edition. In there, within the chapter about Namespaces, they talk about Object Systems and mentioned [incr Tcl] and XOTcl; the latter one as a more recent development. So, I went ahead and checked out http://www.tcl.tk/man/itcl3.1/index.html and http://media.wu-wien.ac.at/doc/tutorial.html Granted, I am not experienced in objects, although a couple of years ago I went back to a local community college for a nice Java course where I learned about OO and concepts like Inheritance and Encapsulation. So, needless to say, I was able to understand itcl right away and I am having the hardest time understanding xotcl. So, I gather that xotcl seems more versatil (and hence more powerfull?)...is [incr tcl] good enough? [incr tcl] seems easy (to me, with my Java knowledge) to grasp and program. How does xotcl compare? I'm just having a hard time separating Objects and Classes, each with its own definitions and methods, etc. By the way, the soccer team example did not include anything on Objects, everything was Classes...so, I was up for a surprise when they started to talk about Objects in the same way they did about Classes. The following statements hit the nail right on the head for me: "This is possible (and not senseless) because of the per-object specialization ability and the dual shape of a class, which is at the same time object and class. Both lead to a seamless connection of the run-time properties (the object features) and their descriptive properties (the class features). It is possible to avoid the strict distinction between them, known from static typed languages, like C++, Java, etc." Needless to say, I am having a hard time with the first sentence from the quotation above. The xotcl toturial is 67 pages long, is it standalone or do I require to know otcl before taking on xotcl? Are there learning alternatives for xotcl other than the tutorial mentioned above? Are 67 pages enough? The book "[incr tcl/tk] from the Ground Up" is over 700 pages long! Any advice? Do you get a lot of questions like these from newbies? Or am I speaking to the wrong crowd i.e., you all love xotcl and think is easy to understand? Thanks for any tips. G.Salazar

2 1

info parameters, parameters for all superclasses?
by Kristoffer Lawson 03 Dec '06

03 Dec '06

I noticed [info parameters] only returns the parameters for the direct class object on which it is called. This actually makes sense and is probably the expected behaviour. I just wonder if it might be useful to have something in there to request all parameters belonging to a certain object, from all its classes and superclasses? Doable in script, of course, but might be handy for serialisation? / http://www.fishpool.com/~setok/

2 1

2025

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

Xotcl December 2006