Notes on Jeff Hobbs ActiveState of Tcl2008 talk.
Reviewed Tcl history...
As of Tcl'2007:
- September 24-28 New Orleans
- 8.4.16 was the standard stable version
- 8.4 now base standard in all distros
- 5 years since 8.4.0
- Numerous enhancements and additions
- Getting long in the tooth
- 8.5b1 released
- 8.6 vs 9.0
- Primary topics: 8.5 finalization, food ...
Reviewed formation/history of the Tcl Core Team
Reviewed Tcl Improvement Proposal (TIPs)...
- Currently 335 TIPs (divided into process, informational and project TIPs)
- TIP page for Tcl: http://tip.tcl.tk/
Maintainers:
- Separate from TCT (though substantial overlap)
- Maintainers oversee a specific area of the core as defined in TIP #16 (Tcl) and TIP #26 (Tk)
- Assist, but not soley responsible for fixing bugs, adding docs, etc.
- Responsible for reviewing code and approving code changes to their area
- Open to anyone willing to learn the core; New volunteers always welcome
Tcl at ActiveState:
- Established 1997
- Current tagline "Dyamic Tools for Dynamic Languages" (Jeff likes older tagline: "Programming for the people" but that doesn't fly as well in the enterprise)
- Jeff Hobbs and Andreas Kupries hired in 2001
- Wealth of scripting knowledge at ActiveState; besides Tcl, Perl, Python, XML/XSLT, etc.
- Acquired by Sophos September 2003; freed in February 2006
- ActiveStateremains dedicated to dynamic languages--collectively a wealth of knowledge
ActiveState provides the Tcl community with: