The best thing to come out of the 2006 conference...

Without a doubt, hearing the news that it is a stated goal to get 8.5.0 [1] out by the spring was the best thing to come out of the 2006 Tcl conference held this past week in Chicago. It is good to know the end is in sight and soon we'll have a wealth of new features to work with.

... or maybe the best news was that SQLite 3.3.8 [2] now has full text searching. D. Richard Hipp described full text searching as "what Google does"; it is much more than just a simple grep through the data. I've been playing with it tonight and it's really nifty stuff that will definitely be something I take advantage of.

... or maybe the best thing was seeing the demo of Donal Fellows' implementation of the new OO stuff [3] [4]. Now, this is all experimental and hasn't yet been voted on, but it's exciting to see actual forward progress being made on putting OO in the core. There are lots of debates left to be won and lost on this issue, but the future is exciting nonetheless.

... or maybe the best thing was seeing Ratcl [5] and Vlerq [6] being demonstrated. I still don't know I could describe Vlerq to someone in an elevator, but I know exciting code when I see it.

... or maybe the best thing was simply hearing Richard Suchenwirth [7] talk with great enthusiasm about Tcl. That was a real treat!

... or maybe it was seeing the future of TkHTML [8] [9] and speaking with the people who are bringing it into the world of CSS. TkHTML is an amazing piece of work that does a marvelous job displaying CSS-based data.

... or maybe it was seeing Whim [10] [11] run. I'm not sure I agree with Steve's choice of colors, but Whim is pretty neat.

... or maybe it was learning about "L" [12], a new syntax that sits on top of Tcl. This is work being done by Larry McVoy of Bitkeeper fame [13]. Imagine this: take a tcl script, add a line that says "#lang(L)", then copy verbatim the qsort code from K&R and watch it run in a Tcl interpreter. It was also definitely a highlight to hear him say the words "I like Tcl". While I'm not sure I'll ever use all the features of "L", the struct stuff looks interesting and it opens up some doors to even more and different ways to extend Tcl. For a guy who used to say he hated Tcl, he sure seems to have a lot of fun with it!

... or maybe it was Stephen Huntley's presentation on Tcl VFS and FILTR [14] [15]. Stephen seems to really be pushing the envelope with TclVFS.

... or maybe it was just hanging out with everyone. All the demos and talks and papers can be read online, seen on line, or perhaps downloaded and run locally. There's nothing quite like just rubbing elbows with Jeff, Joe, Donal, Larry, Oscar, Tim, Dan, Gerald, Clif, Mike, Mark, Sean, Steve, Steve, Richard, Will, Jean Claude, Ken, Kevin, and all the others.

2007 is going to be a *great* year for Tcl and Tk. Start planning now for next year's conference [16].

References

  1. What's new in 8.5, http://mini.net/tcl/10630
  2. SQLite Home Page, http://www.sqlite.org
  3. TIP 257, http://tcl.activestate.com/cgi-bin/tct/tip/257.html
  4. TIP 257 on the Wiki, http://mini.net/tcl/14754
  5. Ratcl, http://www.vlerq.org/vlerq/ratcl
  6. Vlerq Home Page, http://www.vlerq.org/vlerq/Home
  7. Richard Suchenwirth on the Wiki, http://mini.net/tcl/496
  8. TkHtml Home Page, http://tkhtml.tcl.tk/
  9. TkHtml on the Wiki, http://wiki.tcl.tk/13972
  10. Whim Home Page, http://whim.linuxsys.net/site
  11. Whim on the Wiki, http://wiki.tcl.tk/13972
  12. Abstract of "L" paper, http://www.tcl.tk/community/tcl2006/abstracts/wed-pm1-2.html
  13. BitKeeper Home Page, http://www.bitkeeper.com
  14. Filter Home Page, http://filtr.sourceforge.net/
  15. Filter on the Wiki, http://mini.net/tcl/14090
  16. Tcl 2007 on the Wiki, http://wiki.tcl.tk/17034

Further Reading