Path: eternal-september.org!mx02.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: Don Porter <donald.porter@nist.gov>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.tcl
Subject: Releases of Itcl and friends
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2014 13:15:16 -0500
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Changed the subject line to focus on where you're really hitting
trouble.

On 11/24/2014 09:55 AM, David Rysdam wrote:
> This is a bit of a rant, but I've been frustrated every time I try to
> download "the universe" and I can't take it anymore.
>
> (For me, "the universe" consists of tcl, tk, itcl 3.4 and itk when I'm
> in production mode, and tcl, tk and itk when I'm in test mode.

The frustration is real and justified, and I wish I had better news
for you but I really don't.  It is frustrating to be reliant on projects
that have atrophied to the point that Itcl, etc. have, but that's what
you face.

Itcl has essentially one developer, Arnulf Wiedemann.

Arnulf's done a fine job getting Itcl 4 off the ground.  I know it's
not quite yet where you need it to be in terms of matching Itcl 3's
behaviors in every detail.  But when he's available, Arnulf is
responsive, and truly amazingly productive in attacking these issues.
And you've done a great job contributing the kind of bug reports and
demonstrations that lead to fixes.

But empirically, he's only available to work on Itcl a few times a year
at a stretch of about a week at a time.

And he has no demonstrated interest in turning the crank to actually
make releases.  What releases there have been, I've been at least
the prod for, and often the one turning the crank.  I've got no real
interest in Itcl+friends honestly, but I've got the obligation to
try to at least get a working Itcl 4 ready to go out with Tcl+pkgs
releases.  When my needs are served, I can let things of lesser
importance to me get away from me.  That's what happened with the
empty itcl4.0.2 directory @ SF.  Sorry.  I dropped the ball on that
because I honestly don't care about it.  Someone who cares about Itcl
ought to be making Itcl releases for them to be done better.

As far as I can tell, Arnulf has no interest in continuing Itcl 3.

Itcl 3 development, what little there is, comes entirely from a small
number of what I might call "caretakers".  Andreas Kupries and Jan
Nijtmans.  Folks without any strong demonstrated interest in Itcl for
themselves, AFAICT, but just contributing a little upkeep "on demand"
as part of some larger effort (ActiveTcl/teapot, TEA).

For Itk, it's not clear whether there's anyone interested at higher
than a "caretaker" level.

The unfortunate reality is that when a body of code is more important
to its users than what remains of its developers and maintainers, then
either some of those users become developers and maintainers, or they
just limp along as best they can.

The good news I can offer as compensation is that the old principle
that the squeaky wheel gets the oil still holds true, and I'm now
looking into what needs to happen to get releases of Itcl 3.4.2,
Itk 3.2.2, Itcl 4.0.3 (Yes, we need that.) and Itk 4.0.1 ready to
go out the door.  That will be helpful, but I cannot commit to any
ongoing service beyond that other than what's necessary for Tcl+pkgs
releases.

It appears that I have the necessary admin permissions at the
incrtcl project at sourceforge to bring in new developers who might
step into the role of making releases.  Any Itclers interested feel
free to email me.

-- 
| Don Porter            Applied and Computational Mathematics Division |
| donald.porter@nist.gov             Information Technology Laboratory |
| http://math.nist.gov/~DPorter/                                  NIST |
|______________________________________________________________________|