Version 17 of Scripted Documents Are Obscure

Updated 2002-07-07 16:02:30

Anyone who doubts that JCW's scripted documents are way cool clearly hasn't been paying attention. Over the last six months or so, scripted documents have become, de facto, the standard way to deliver standalone Tcl/Tk applications. Just browsing about, I even found a copy of my own expand application as a scripted document (is anyone using that version?). Scripted documents allow you package up your Tcl application and all packages it requires into one binary, cross-platform file; and, optionally, create platform-specific executables. And it works well enough that lots of people are doing it.

But there are problems--not with the technology, so as much as with its presentation.

  • The name "scripted document" does very little to convey what scripted documents are all about.
  • The instructions for creating and using scripted documents are scattered hither and thither.

A potential creator of scripted documents really has to dig, not only to find out how to create them, but even just to find out what they are good for.

And let's be clear--what we have here is simply a Tcl version of Java ".jar" files, with the runtime environment optionally bound in. It works. It's way cool. And it's become a standard. It's time to tear down the veil of obscurity.

  • We need a better, more communicative name.
  • We need a concise set of instructions for application authors.

-- WHD

Too bad ".tar" is already taken. ;-) How about ".tap" for "Tcl application package" ? --MDD

Wow, amazing timing... I'm in the process of documenting right now (and they are about to be reborn under a new name). As for "simply jar files": not quite, SD's are r/w with transaction-safe commit/rollback because there's a database engine underneath. That means they can also store config info, update themselves, and store extensive datasets. -jcw

Well, OK. I agree that there's more to it than I've said. But in terms of giving people an immediate understanding of what SD's are all about, I think ".jar file + runtime" is apt. That you can have even more than that with no more work is gravy. -- WHD


How about .dar for Dynamic Archive? (or djar, or dtar, or...)

... or .sar for Scripited (scriptable?) Archive.

Close :o) ... the new name is "Starkit" -jcw


Category Wikit | Category Tclkit | Category Scripted Document