Why do I build itcl-ng ('''itcl'''-'''N'''ext '''G'''eneration)?

About September 2006 I [apw] started to think about the future of [incr tcl] / [Itcl]. I had heared that there are a lot of problems in Tcl core because of Itcl. So I was thinking about a new version. The first idea was to build a Tcl only version. The story of that approach can be seen at [tclOO missing features for Itcl].

After all I have started for the 4th time using original Itcl source code (because of performance problems with the other projects) and replacing all the dispatching and the code directly working in Tcl core areas with [tclOO] and a small layer which can perhaps in the future be integrated into Tcl core.

Goals, ideas etc.

   1. to make Itcl easier to maintain with respect to Tcl core (at the moment there are a lot of "hacks" in Tcl core only needed for Itcl) 
   1. use [tclOO] as a dispatcher and to use in the future some of the features available there (filters, mixins)
   1. try to make Itcl an extension which is independent of Tcl core in that it uses only published Tcl_ interfaces (that means no use of tclInt.h)
   1. to make it in the long range faster then the old version and perhaps more attractive
   1. ....

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Progress:

''[apw] 2007-09-08'' Today I have finished the implementation of the very first version of itcl-ng which is passing Itcl test suite with 0 failed test cases and 400 succeded ones. An almost up-to-date version is now at Sourceforge in the incr tcl repository [http://incrtcl.cvs.sourceforge.net/incrtcl/incrTcl/?pathrev=itcl-ng] with tag itcl-ng. Same is done for itk which is running about 98 of 100 tests successfull.
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[Category Extension] | [Category Object Orientation]