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Over the last couple of years I've recorded gigabytes of radio that I later listen to on my Yepp MP3 player.

Note that talk radio only require encoding at 24 kbps which equates to ~10MB/hour.

All the Amiga people at one time said the same things that are being said here. UAE is too slow, it will never be fast enough, stable enough, etc.

The reason this thing is so slow is because its interpreting the PPC code. Its slow for the same reason that Java is slow (sans JIT). Once they get JIT on it, or some other kind of direct conversion to x86 code, it will get much much faster. Google for JIT, code morphing, check out this link: Dynamo.

Its entirely possible to create an emulator that would approach the speed of the real thing.

I think its only a matter of time before this type of technology gets good enough that CPU compatibility will be irrelevant (even though we could do it now with things like Java or Slim Binaries)...

But also, if you don't mind Tcl, you can just store the data in Tcl lists. Tcl's syntax is simple enough that it makes this sort of thing pretty straightforward.

The following in particular is relevent to many open-source projects: "Have a plan for each file before you begin coding. - It's all too easy to fall into the trap of staying up late coding massive amounts of code. Often if you really think about the problem you can reduce the amount of code substantially. By having a plan you also can work out potential problems before you invest time. This is what separates a software engineer from a programmer."

I've racked my brain trying to figure out why Tcl is hated by so many in the "pop" geek community. The only answer that I've been able to come up with is the fact that those making the complaints are those who: a) do not actually know Tcl and haven't taken the time to understand it and b) are zealots of some other scripting language. A third possible reason that comes to mind is perhaps that some people just can't stand the idea of something that doesn't even closely resemble C-style syntax.

I started using Tcl/Tk at the suggestion of a fellow LUG member after explaining that I needed something a bit more complicated than xmessage to drive a script that I was working on. I dug in, found it strange, then found it cool, then found it fun, and finally knew enough to start doing some real work. I now use Tck/Tk on a daily basis on a wide variety of projects and have no intention of giving it up. A 5-year-old can understand the syntax, the commands are very well documented, and the community is stellar... none of the condescending holier-than-thou's that always seem to surround the hip scripting language of the month.

The Tcl'ers Wiki has quite a few pages examining why some people like Tcl and they're even keeping tabs on who says Tcl sucks and why.

I've racked my brain trying to figure out why Tcl is hated by so many in the "pop" geek community. The only answer that I've been able to come up with is the fact that those making the complaints are those who: a) do not actually know Tcl and haven't taken the time to understand it and b) are zealots of some other scripting language. A third possible reason that comes to mind is perhaps that some people just can't stand the idea of something that doesn't even closely resemble C-style syntax.

I started using Tcl/Tk at the suggestion of a fellow LUG member after explaining that I needed something a bit more complicated than xmessage to drive a script that I was working on. I dug in, found it strange, then found it cool, then found it fun, and finally knew enough to start doing some real work. I now use Tck/Tk on a daily basis on a wide variety of projects and have no intention of giving it up. A 5-year-old can understand the syntax, the commands are very well documented, and the community is stellar... none of the condescending holier-than-thou's that always seem to surround the hip scripting language of the month.

The Tcl'ers Wiki has quite a few pages examining why some people like Tcl and they're even keeping tabs on who says Tcl sucks and why.

Claim 1 reads:

• 1. A software architecture for a distributed computing system comprising: an application configured to handle requests submitted by remote devices over a network; and an application program interface to present functions used by the application to access network and computing resources of the distributed computing system.

Tcl-DP provided an application configured to handle requests submitted by remote devices over a network (the RPC server), and an application program interface to present functions used by the application to access network and computing resources of the distributed computing system (the dp_RPC command protocol). The client application mentioned in the dependent claims is provided by any application configured as an RPC client.

Great thing about Lisp, is if you need to convert your communications, you can write Lisp against it to convert it while you convert your Lisp source.. easily.

I plopped an XSLT processor in front of it. Took minutes to implement. In the mean time, I was able to properly rewrite the XML producing code. So I had some flexibility in terms of patching the protocol quickly, while taking the weeks I needed to fix things right.

I plopped a Lisp processor in front of it. Took minutes to implement. In the mean time, I was able to properly rewrite the Lisp producing code. So I had some flexibility in terms of patching the protocol quickly, while taking the weeks I needed to fix things right.

the point is, XML IS descriptive, so long as you use good names.

the point is, Lisp IS descriptive, so long as you use good names.

If you use XML to develop a lower level protocol you end up with bloated 10k messages.

If you use Lisp S-expressions to develop a lower level protocol you don't end up with bloated 10k messages.

Besides, in Common Lisp you'll really appreciate MOP - Meta-Object Protocol. Much better than SOAP.

Trust me, I know well, actively use and actually love both Lisp *AND* XML.

A sampling of companies heavily reliant on Tcl can be seen at http://www.tcl.tk/customers/success/

The Tcler's Wiki is probably the hub of the most activity: http://mini.net/tcl/0

A brief list of cross-platform Starkits available is at http://mini.net/sdarchive/ though the Starkit system makes it trivially easy to package and distribute complete applications for multiple platforms. For an impressive display of what can be with a Tcl Starkit, you can check out Kitten, which is "a tclkit collection of [over 100] Tcl/Tk extensions aimed at reducing the work a developer has to do while developing a starkit. It contains script and compiled extensions like tcllib, BWidgets, expat, Expect, incr Widgets, mclistbox, mpexpr, narray, a tcl parser, an sgml parser, tclSOAP, stooop, Supertext, tdom, Tix, Tktable, tclXML, tkHtml, ClassyTk and others."

A sampling of companies heavily reliant on Tcl can be seen at http://www.tcl.tk/customers/success/

The Tcler's Wiki is probably the hub of the most activity: http://mini.net/tcl/0

A brief list of cross-platform Starkits available is at http://mini.net/sdarchive/ though the Starkit system makes it trivially easy to package and distribute complete applications for multiple platforms. For an impressive display of what can be with a Tcl Starkit, you can check out Kitten, which is "a tclkit collection of [over 100] Tcl/Tk extensions aimed at reducing the work a developer has to do while developing a starkit. It contains script and compiled extensions like tcllib, BWidgets, expat, Expect, incr Widgets, mclistbox, mpexpr, narray, a tcl parser, an sgml parser, tclSOAP, stooop, Supertext, tdom, Tix, Tktable, tclXML, tkHtml, ClassyTk and others."

A sampling of companies heavily reliant on Tcl can be seen at http://www.tcl.tk/customers/success/

The Tcler's Wiki is probably the hub of the most activity: http://mini.net/tcl/0

A brief list of cross-platform Starkits available is at http://mini.net/sdarchive/ though the Starkit system makes it trivially easy to package and distribute complete applications for multiple platforms. For an impressive display of what can be with a Tcl Starkit, you can check out Kitten, which is "a tclkit collection of [over 100] Tcl/Tk extensions aimed at reducing the work a developer has to do while developing a starkit. It contains script and compiled extensions like tcllib, BWidgets, expat, Expect, incr Widgets, mclistbox, mpexpr, narray, a tcl parser, an sgml parser, tclSOAP, stooop, Supertext, tdom, Tix, Tktable, tclXML, tkHtml, ClassyTk and others."

If you're talking about true cross-platform compatibility, combined with ease of development and deployment, then Tcl can't be beat. It's always been good, but recent developments, such as the Starkitpackaging and runtime system, make it a hands-down winner.

Tcl was OK, but it frankly shocked me that it was still being developed actively.

TCLs claim to fame is its small memory use. TCL can be included as a command interpreter in other programs easily and without much bloat. There are more embedded TCL applications than any one person knows about; both in hardware and software. TCL was also first with UTF-8 support in strings, around 1998 or before, way before Perl, so there are probably more TCL CGI scripts overseas than most English users think.

As for benchmarks, TCL is getting faster, with a huge jump from v7 to v8 and about a 25% improvement from 8.0 to 8.4a3 (scroll down to bottom of linked page.)

Incidentally, for those 5 years, NBC has been using Tcl in mission critical, real time applications to stream video to affiliates across the country.

I've been using tDOM lately, a Tcl interface to the DOM. It is, quite simply, the fastest XML parser I have found.

Richard Suchenwirth has already done this in Tcl.

I've been using ical since 1998.

Thanks for the links. : )

Hopefully to the benefit of everyone, I'll mention a couple sites I found (mostly through Pierre's book link) which contain a lot of potentially useful info:

• R.S. Pressman & Associates: pointers to collections of component architecture resources

• Cetus Links: thousands of links to component arch info

Anyone know what the dealie is with Korelib? The idea looks excellent, and potentially very useful for myself, but the project seems not to have been touched for over a year.

-Greg