[TCLCORE] Report of Biweekly telco on 20th of October at 12:00 UTC

[Harald O. <har...@el...>]

Dear Tcl/Tk team,

here is the report of the biweekly telco of today:

Top 1) Release calender (TIP 713)
- 9.0.3: October (2 weeks left)
SQLite 2.15.1 is planned for in 2 weeks. Might be useful to wait for it
Tdbc-sqlite dict extension by Christian may be in a later release. This 
is the foundation.
- 9.1a1: November (6 weeks left)

Don faces work issues like most US gouvernment organs, which may end at 
each moment, but no prediction possible.
Jan joins the release team and will jump-in in coordination with Don.

Current release timing is seen as reasonable.

Top 2) TIP 734 nested mutex (go or not)
We did a lot of efforts to make it work.
We have test cases.
The reason to remove it is not there any more.
Wait for Ashok, unfortunately not present today.
Sebres and Christian are very reserved on this feature.
Use case is the encoding initialisation of TCL.
We want consistent behaviour on all platforms.
Windows works, Linux may hang in rare cases.
The TIP proposes to go back to 8.6, what is currently in inconsistent 
state (work on Windows, not on Linux).

The API encourages to go the wrong way (nested mutex). But the rare case 
where it is useful is good.

Splitting the API in two versions would be ok (recursive and 
non-recursive). But there is no error path if the mutex is already locked.

A warning should be added to the documentation that recursive mutex is 
bad design.

The main reason for TIP 509 was consistent behaviour, as Windows did it.
- two possible consistent behahaviors for mutex lock when mutex is locked:
   - recursive
   - panic
Currently, there is no error path

Top 3) TIP 733: accessability (test status)
Highly appreciated. Tests should pass.
Important for alpha release, as testing is required. People must test 
the feature.
There are historic Tk test files for interactive testing. That would be 
a path to test this feature.
People will test.

Top 4) TIP 732: TCL library path (discussion)
To many things in the library path. Any improvement welcomed.
Make the rc file configurable.

Using external files and environment variables is also a security risk.
It would be great to make this configurable.
Tk also concerned.

Top 5) TIP 731: use C enums (no brainer?)
enums is prefered, great work !
In addition, compiler can check more cases (case strctures).

Little chance for incompatibility, as check for existence (#ifdef) 
changes. Should be in the compatibility section of the TIP.

Not all participants are convinced, if bitmasks are good as enums.
Compiler knows the maximum value, if assigned to an int.

Top 6) TIP 720: new bytecodes (final, great! Any issues?)
Its a risk as disruptive change.
Highly appreciated.

Top 7) TIP 721: Tcl_AttemptGetString
Not finished jet. Need some more functions.
Highly appreciated.

Top 8) TIP 715: supported build systems
Tcl 9.0 currently has minimum C11, with exception of MS-VS 2015 (limited 
implementation)

Old industrial systems controls require older compilers.
2038 will put a hard end on Tcl 8.6.

Top 9) $($a+$b) syntax for expressions
Thanks for the great contribution.
Incompatibility is seen as critical.
Breaking change, only for version 10.
Only possible in tcl 9 with global nob.
Impact on constructed code will cause error cases hard to find.
Proposal with "{=}{$a+$b}" would not break basic syntax rules.

Jim compatibility is seen as relevant.
That is a plus point.
Test suite with patch is clean!
Discussion may continue.

Top 10) Tk test reform by Eric (Thanks !)
Appreciated. No discussion due to lack of time

Top 11) Tcl depot and awthemes ?
Skipped, timeout
Top 12) AOB
Skipped, timeout
Top 13) Next meeting:
     3rd of November 12:00 UTC.

Thanks for all,
Harald