While going over the latest developments in Tcl/Tk (the comp.lang.tcl.annouce newsgroup has a fabulous weekly summary thing something like SLUG pearls) I've come across a thing in development called 'scripted documents'. It's designed for scripting languages, the first ones being Python and Tcl. The main attraction of this thing is to place all essential executables, core scripts etc in one big 'ball', and the application - its scripts, documents etc. in another 'ball'. These are something like tarballs, or zip files or Java jar files. These 'kits' are simply downloaded and 'executed'. The application 'kits' are platform independant, you simply get one 'executable' ball for your host (e.g. Linux, FreeBSD, Win32, Sun), and then the application kit. You don't unpack these things or install them. They are complete, ready to go. It's still under development so it has some rough edges, but is a powerful idea. Here's some info from the newsgroup if you want to try it out: " One mechanism built on top of all this is "Scripted Documents", http://www.equi4.com/jcw/scripdoc.html This is a way to package apps, data, and extensions in a single installation-less file (and without extensions, also: portable). On Windows and Linux, there are now some nice documentation sets of Tcl, Python, and MetaKit (preliminary) based on this approach: For Tcl, download http://www.equi4.com/previews/tcldok.bin For Python, download http://www.equi4.com/previews/pydok.bin For MetaKit, download http://www.equi4.com/previews/mk4api.bin For Linux, download http://www.equi4.com/previews/tclkit-linux.bin For Windows, download http://www.equi4.com/previews/tclkit.exe Now a few tweaks to fix that what a download can't do for you: - rename the Linux runtime to tclkit, do a "chmod +x" on it - remove the .bin suffixes, and do "chmod +x" on those too To launch, drop the doc on tclkit.exe (or just ./tcldok, etc). These scripted documents are complete applications, with scripts, HTML pages (and in the case of mk4api: images) and two compiled versions of the tkhtml widget by Richard Hipp. All compressed. To "uninstall", delete these files again. There is no unpacking, no installation, no version issues, no conflicts with other s/w. Scripted documents can become just as useful with Python btw, but this will require stub support to be added first. " Just to add a bit more to this. In http://www.equi4.com/previews/ there are other 'application kits' After you have downloaded the 'tclkit', you can try wikit.gz or tclhttpd.bin (see the README files for each). The tclhttpd.bin is a complete web server. The conf files, scripts, docos etc. are all contained within it's "virtual filesystem". You simply start it and it's listening on port 8015. Inside, the virtual filesystem is built on top of a database type system called MetaKit. All details, white papers etc on the above equi4 web site. Just to re-iterate: this is a work in progress. There are specific things that I don't like, but the concept is very exciting. Jamie -- SLUG - Sydney Linux Users Group Mailing List - http://www.slug.org.au To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe in the text
