On 2008-01-08 22:56-0600 Maurice LeBrun wrote: > On Tuesday, January 8, 2008 at 16:11:13 (-0800) Alan W. Irwin writes: > > Maurice, there is a question at the end for you about the current > > status of itcl. > > .. > > N.B. itcl is not compatible with Tcl 8.5, and is probably going to be a > > problem for all future versions of Tcl because it appears not to be > > maintained any more. > > I hope that's not the case. Last time there was an itcl-breaking Tcl release, > there was a subsequent itcl update to fix everything IIRC. So while it might > not be an active project in the conventional sense, that doesn't mean someone > won't step in to fix it to work with the latest Tcl. > > > http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=13244 shows the last > > itcl release was a release candidate (!) done almost thre years ago. From > > the itcl FAQ, itcl is not a pure Tcl extension; it has to patch the Tcl > > core. Debian testing package dependencies show the latest itcl package > > depends on the tcl 8.4 package and is inconsistent with tcl 8.5. > > That FAQ entry sounds old. True at one time, but currently AFAIK itcl does > represent a pure extension. Once namespaces & some other needed core Tcl > support was added ages ago, the need to patch Tcl went away. Again, this > is all by memory so YMMV. > > > So my strong advice is to disable itcl and itk if you are going to try > > Tcl/Tk 8.5. Orion, interference from itcl may be the cause of your ctest > > time troubles with Tcl 8.5. > > > > Maurice, I would appreciate your further comments on the itcl situation. Is > > it not compatible with tcl 8.5 because that version of Tcl uses its own OO > > approach or is OO not going to be available at all for the Tcl future unless > > somebody starts actively supporting itcl? > > I'll take a look but it might not be this week.
Thanks, Maurice, for your comments. Based on them I got up my courage to actually leave itcl and itk enabled with tcl 8.5 and ctest still worked! I also did "make install" and tried -dev tk with the installed examples and everything seemed to work. However, from your further comments itcl/itk plays only a small role in PLplot so it may take a particular interactive test of the -dev tk gui that I missed or some other specific interactive test to actually discover whether the itcl/itk-related part of Plplot is working or not. Of course, it could be working fine because Debian testing allows me to have both Tcl 8.5 and Tcl 8.4 installed (in fact demands Tcl 8.4 when itcl/itk is installed). Until we get the definitive word from Maurice about whether it is possible, in general, to mix itcl/itk with a pure Tcl 8.5 environment, my "strong advice" comment above is probably too strong and should be downgraded to "proceed with caution". Orion, I was very glad to hear that svn trunk works for you now in your pure Tcl 8.5 environment with itcl/itk disabled. Do you want to try out the further test of enabling itcl/itk for PLplot for your environment? Since your environment (unlike mine) is pure Tcl 8.5, you may get a very different result than mine. Alan __________________________ Alan W. Irwin Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca). Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software package (plplot.org); the libLASi project (unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net). __________________________ Linux-powered Science __________________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Check out the new SourceForge.net Marketplace. It's the best place to buy or sell services for just about anything Open Source. http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;164216239;13503038;w?http://sf.net/marketplace _______________________________________________ Plplot-devel mailing list Plplot-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/plplot-devel
