On 09/15/2010 03:52 PM, Damon Courtney wrote:
I'm not sure I know where to go either. 0-] I'm just working with it and starting to find places where it could be improved, that's all. I think you're right about getting new users and new energy, but not a damn one of us knows how to do that. If we did, one of us might have been able to save Tcl somewhat. David has complained of this point many times.
David was right in many ways. People in the TCT have been doing very well starting with the release of 8.5 though, and some resurgence of interest in the language exists. This might not be enough for David's standards (he's has walked a long way in other directions now), but it is enough for me. I've been investing lot of time in Tcl in the years 2003-07, I did some projects with a good degree of complexity using Tcl/Incr Tcl (either Tcl/Tk or Tcl with Rivet), but I don't have significant new projects to develop with it by now. I just don't feel like I want to throw away what I did and after all I found working on Rivet pleasant technically and socially (thanks David for getting me in)
We're just not marketing people. How do you market a language to someone? Tcl is much easier for novices to grasp, but its setup means that you have to have an Apache server implementation with the ability to compile modules in. That's not something a novice is going to have. They're going to be setup on a simple hosting service that probably has PHP built in. It's the default choice for a lot of people because it's always there.
The only way I know is by developing a basis that enough people may find so interesting that it can work as a condensation nucleus of new energies. If we want to have new real resources we must aim at those who are skilled enough to compile Rivet on their own, at least initially, and put in their experience and good practice in doing things. In other words, I think we should try to walk the way you pointed out in the past: a project fat enough to be a decent framework for working on web programming with Tcl and Apache. Tcl hasn't had it so far and it's a pity. After all in the late '90 looked like the perfect language for the web, whose only rival was Perl.
I think Rob Sciuk said it well. Ajax might be something to be thrown in from the beginning since it's been a buzzword for quite a few years and it's necessary to build modern web based applications. My personal idea is that we should also try to connect to other ideas and projects within the Tcl area. Personally I think that focusing on Itcl as the basic layer on which develop any structured idea is important. I doubt my work can revolution the field but my itcl classes at least provided for a simple workable (largely suboptimal) framework to work on. I just doubt it's based on an idea strong enough and I look forward to see what Arnulf will propose at the Tcl Conference.
I'm open to suggestions, but I've given up caring about what people want to work on my projects. If I want to work on them, I work on them. The people who care about the project and use it will always contribute to it here and there. But until someone has a need for something, the project will push along doing what it does without problems. It doesn't mean the project is dead, it just means there's not much to do with a stable release that works really well and does the job.
This is the most common feeling I hear expressed in the Tcl community. I entirely understand (and also I share it in a way) but just regret it's the way things are carried on...
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