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Top Document: comp.lang.tcl Frequently Asked Questions (March 07, 2005) (1/6) Previous Document: News Headers Next Document: -II- What is Tcl? Tk? Extended Tcl? What is Tcl _not_? See reader questions & answers on this topic! - Help others by sharing your knowledge What is comp.lang.tcl? First, let me assure you what it is not. <URL: news:comp.lang.tcl > (and <URL: news:comp.lang.tcl.announce > now) are *NOT* bulletin boards. They are not, innately, mailing lists. Some users may experience the messages in those formats, but these communities of users are what is known as USENET newsgroups. While Dr. John Ousterhout <URL: http://home.pacbell.net/ouster/ > was the creator of the original, unmoderated <URL: news:comp.lang.tcl >, in the current incarnation, clt (as it is often referenced) has no moderator, no owner, no authority to whom one can appeal when one feels slighted, offended, libeled, etc. On the other hand, there are a group of moderators associated with <URL: news:comp.lang.tcl.announce >, whose job it is to ensure that the postings there remain 'on charter'. What kinds of topics are appropriate for <URL: news:comp.lang.tcl >? Good question. The original charter stated: It will be an unmoderated forum for the discussion of the Tcl programming language and tools that include it, such as Expect and the Tk toolkit for X-Windows (sic). Thus, discussing Tcl, extensions and tools that use Tcl, products and design ideas, all can be on topic. The "Welcome to comp.lang.tcl" message <URL: http://www.purl.org/NET/Tcl-Welcome > lays out other useful suggestions. The majority of readers of <URL: news:comp.lang.tcl > are access the postings in English, and seem to prefer plain text postings formatted to 78 or less characters per line, as opposed to HTML, Postscript, MIME base64, Macintosh special character sets, etc.. They also prefer to have postings which specify a working email address in the From or Reply-To header (or at least in the body of the msg somewhere). While alternatives to that are certainly possible, you decrease the chance of getting a timely relevant answer by choosing alternatives to these. These rules are not unique to clt, but are the typical USENET netiquette that posters are asked to respect. As an alternative to this, there are the French <URL: news:fr.comp.lang.tcl >, German <URL: news:de.comp.lang.tcl >, and Japanese <URL: news:fj.lang.tcl > equivalents of <URL: news:comp.lang.tcl >. Posting of source code is acceptable (and in fact encouraged if you are having problems) if reasonably sized (a few hundred lines). otherwise, you should investigate some other means of distributing code you wish to share - perhaps via <URL: http://www.sf.net/ > or one of the other similar sites. Posting of binaries (or even HTML attachements) are in general is not looked upon kindly; use of NeoSoft or one of the many free web sites, etc. is a much better alternative. Advertising for books, jobs, software, etc. are acceptable if done with some forethought - frequent 'form letter' postings and announcements are likely to meet with some community resistance. One question that comes up fairly often concerning <URL: news:comp.lang.tcl > is 'why isn't the newsgroup split?'. The newsgroup varies in traffic, but I have seen as many as 45 messages a day (counting current cross postings, etc.) Currently, many have come forward with ideas on how a split could be handled, but no concensus has been reached. Also, no moderators have stepped forward to take over moderation of a split group. During January, 1996, <URL: news:comp.lang.tcl.announce >, a moderated group containing announcements of new software, doc, etc. relating to Tcl, was created. So as of right now, asking to split the newsgroup only adds to the existing traffic, without resolving any problems. Other newsgroup in which you might encounter Tcl discussion are <URL: news:alt.comp.tkdesk >, where discussions about the Tk application TkDesk may take place, <URL: news:comp.unix.sco.programmer > - where discussion about SCO's vtcl (a graphical interface extension based on the Motif library) can be found, <URL: news:comp.lang.perl.tk >, which covers discussions about the Tk binding to Perl, and of course, discussions of specific ports of Tcl/Tk/other Tcl-based extensions and programs will frequently be found on the appropriate OS or hardware related newsgroups You can also find discussions regarding Tcl in many of the support newsgroups and mailing lists provided by vendors/authors who are using Tcl in their products. Two examples are the mailing lists for AOL's AOLserver and Tcl/Tk based Instant Messages client TiK (see "part2"), while Vignette has <URL: nntp://news.vignette.com/vignette.storyserver.misc > and <URL: nntp://news.vignette.com/vignette.storyserver.template-lang >. The information in this set of FAQs comes from several sources. The primary source of information is the group itself - I spend (much too much) time each month culling through what I feel are some of the best answers, gathering up new information on ports, etc. and adding it here. I also gather new application information and add it as best I can. The next most predominant source of information comes from the authors of the various software packages. Finally, a small amount comes from my personal experiences. You can find my general Tcl FAQs at <URL: http://www.purl.org/NET/Tcl-FAQ/ > . The commercial use of Tcl FAQ is no longer being maintained. The last copy of it available for ftp can be found at <URL: ftp://ftp.procplace.com/pub/tcl/sorted/packages-7.6/info/faq/tcl-commercial-faq-p1.gz >, <URL: ftp://ftp.procplace.com/pub/tcl/sorted/packages-7.6/info/faq/tcl-commercial-faq-p2.gz >, <URL: ftp://ftp.procplace.com/pub/tcl/sorted/packages-7.6/info/faq/tcl-commercial-faq-p3.gz >. Commercial vendors who write products using Tcl and who would like some visibility in the community can contact the Tcl Core Team <URL: http://www.tcltk.com/ > for ideas. The FAQ containing a series of Tcl-related questions and answers is managed by <URL: mailto:jmoss@ichips.intel.com > (Joe Moss). See <URL: http://psg.com/%7Ejoem/tcl/faq.html > or find it at <URL: ftp://ftp.procplace.com/pub/tcl/sorted/packages-7.6/info/faq/tcl-faq-usage.gz >. The FAQ containing Tk-related questions and answers is managed by <URL: mailto:jeff at hobbs.org > (Jeffrey Hobbs). You can find it at <URL: http://www.purl.org/net/hobbs/tcl/faqs/tk/ >. A bibliography of published material related to Tcl will be managed by <URL: mailto:glv@utdallas.edu > (Glenn Vanderburg). (See "bibliography/part1") or ftp it at <URL: ftp://ftp.procplace.com/pub/tcl/sorted/packages-7.6/info/faq/tcl-faq-bib.gz >. Cameron Laird <URL: mailto:Cameron@Lairds.com > has made available his personal notes on mistakes frequently made by newcomers to Tcl at <URL: http://phaseit.net/claird/comp.lang.tcl/fmm.html > and will update it as time permits. Cameron maintains one of the more unusual FAQ pages as well - the Unanswered Frequently-Asked Questions about Tcl page <URL: http://phaseit.net/claird/comp.lang.tcl/tcl-UFAQ.html >. He has many other useful collections of information on Tcl and Tk. Look over the list by going to <URL: http://phaseit.net/claird/comp.lang.tcl/ >. FAQs are also available for the Windows port of Tcl <URL: http://www.pconline.com/%7Eerc/tclwin.htm >, Macintosh port <URL: http://www.tcl.tk/mac/macFAQ.html >, and perl/Tk <URL: news:comp.lang.perl.tk > <URL: http://phaseit.net/claird/comp.lang.perl.tk/ptkFAQ.html >. A renewal of the effort of converting the FAQs to Japanese has begun. You can find the ongoing updates (currently things are still old) at <URL: http://www.tohoku.iij.ad.jp/%7Etaguchi/tcl-tk/JpDocs/index-en.html >. It is being built by Taguchi Takeshi <URL: mailto:taguchi@tohoku.iij.ad.jp > and Oota Toshiya <URL: mailto:oota@pes.com1.fc.nec.co.jp >. A newsbot has been implemented by Andreas Kupries <URL: mailto:andreas_kupries@users.sourceforge.net > which provides a <URL: news:comp.lang.tcl > automated welcome, providing first time posters some introductory remarks and a set of pointers to the FAQs and other common resources. You can see the current version of the mailing by looking at <URL: http://www.purl.org/NET/Tcl-Welcome >. A WWW form to submit entries to the Tcl/Tk software catalog is available at <URL: http://www.wwinfo.com/tcl/ >. This provides you an interface not only to submit new items, but to submit updates or to browse the catalog as needed. A sort of "Who's Who in the Tcl Community" directory has been created - see <URL: http://www.tcl.tk/resource/community/people/ > for the current information. Be sure to submit your own information. If you have corrections, enhancements, modifications, clarifications, suggestions, ideas, new questions, new answers to questions which have never been asked, or something else that I have not covered above, contact me at <URL: mailto:lvirden@yahoo.com >. User Contributions:Top Document: comp.lang.tcl Frequently Asked Questions (March 07, 2005) (1/6) Previous Document: News Headers Next Document: -II- What is Tcl? Tk? Extended Tcl? What is Tcl _not_? Part1 - Part2 - Part3 - Part4 - Part5 - Part6 - Single Page [ Usenet FAQs | Web FAQs | Documents | RFC Index ] Send corrections/additions to the FAQ Maintainer: lvirden@yahoo.com (Larry W. Virden)
Last Update March 27 2014 @ 02:12 PM
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