Tcl/Tk 8.5.0 Released
dkf writes "Tcl/Tk 8.5 has been released for all major platforms after 5 years of development. There are many new goodies in it, including significant speedups through an advanced bytecode engine, stronger localization of applications, integrated arbitrary-precision arithmetic, a whole bunch of brand new skinnable widgets, anti-aliased text support on all platforms, and a new code-module management system to make maintenance of installations a snap. More in-depth information about the features of both this release and Tcl/Tk in general is available at the official Tcl/Tk website. Mark Roseman's blog has a first-look review."
Will the Tk widgets now integrate with the rest of the desktop, in terms of using the same theme settings that other programs use?
Yes
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
Tcl is too stable for many who think the bleeding edge is cool, and too different for those who think C is the pinnacle of language design - so it's left to a large number of people who just get on with using it because it works. Of course, if you're not interested in cross-platform GUIs, event driven I/O, Internationalization, extensibility, portability, rapid prototyping, easy interfacing to C and other languages and automated test environments then perhaps Tcl isn't for you.
There's some great new stuff for Tcl in this release. Built-in dict type http://wiki.tcl.tk/dict, Functional Application http://wiki.tcl.tk/apply, built-in arbitrary precision integers http://wiki.tcl.tk/10942, at last a sanctioned OO framework http://wiki.tcl.tk/TclOO.
New Tk looks beautiful.
Tcl runs webservers, robotic manufacturing equipment, and even monitors spacecraft. Odds are that you have probably used a Tcl/Tk application and never even knew it. (If you've watched NBC since 1998, you've seen the results of a Tcl application on screen.)
I'm an unabashed Tcl fanboy, and this release is great.
"There are four boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order." Ed Howdershelt