Re: [TCLCORE] [Ext] Re: [=] for concise expressions (was Re: TIP 672 Implementation Complete - Ready for Sponsorship)

[Phillip B. <phi...@um...>]

I would like to see something like this in the core.  Then, there is no
concern about using the undocumented interface.

Phil

On Fri, Nov 7, 2025 at 5:40 PM Steve Landers <st...@di...>
wrote:

> I am very positive about Colin's approach, especially with the speedups
> you (Eric) have recommended.  In my opinion it offers the best hope of
> improving the expr command without breaking code or introducing Lots of
> Interminably Silly Parentheses (see what I did there?).
>
> As for bytecode changes,  as Phil notes they come with the risk of making
> the solution release-dependent but I don't think that should be seen as a
> show-stopper given the value of an improved expr.
>
> Just my 2c worth
>
> -- Steve
> On 8 Nov 2025 at 9:06 AM +0800, EricT <tw...@gm...>, wrote:
>
> Philip:
>
> Well, maybe it's a good thing that I don't have any tct votes. But now I
> have some pure tcl, that runs very fast and finally I can put the expr
> dragon to rest. I have several versions of tcl, and many of Ashok's great
> tclkit's bundled with twapi. I hope he finds a way to create more,
> especially for 9.x. I have some utilities that for some forgotten reason
> still need an older 8.6, and so that's how they launch.
>
> If you want to try my latest fork of Colin's masterpiece, you can just
> tclsh it and then take a look at the bytecode, as it dumps the cache at the
> end. There are now 140 test cases you can look through as examples of
> usage.  The last 10 also use : as the command name, which I think of as a
> slimmer alias of = that just seems to look right to my eyes. But = works as
> well.
>
> Here's the very latest:
>
> https://github.com/rocketship88/colin-parser
>
> Eric
>
>
> On Fri, Nov 7, 2025 at 4:16 PM Phillip Brooks <phi...@um...> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Nov 7, 2025 at 2:14 PM EricT <tw...@gm...> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Phillip:
>>>
>>> In going from tcl 8.6 to tcl 9.0 the only things that broke, at least
>>> where Colin's program is concerned, were land and lor, which are no longer
>>> supported. If the bytecode were to have to support those two because they
>>> had been made public, I don't see the big harm. In 8.6 they'd already gone
>>> to a jump based arrangement for short circuiting. So, in 9.x they just
>>> removed these 2 instructions.
>>>
>>
>> The harm is that the bytecode is currently allowed to change completely
>> from release to release.   This allows for reorganization and optimization
>> that would otherwise be impossible.  The way you are using it is, I think,
>> safe since you only ever create and run it in the same session.  If opened
>> up for general use, people might try to save it to a file, and then use
>> that on a different release.   Others are more expert in this area than I
>> am, though.
>>
>> Phil
>>
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