Re: [tcljava-user] State of SWANK for TCL and Ruby

[Maurice D. <Mau...@en...>]

Le 6 d=E9c. 06 =E0 00:26, Bruce Johnson a =E9crit :

> Hi Maurice,
>
> Thanks for the interest in Swank.  It is still very much alive.  I
> work on it  a lot, but am so busy with trying to keep my one person
> company afloat that I haven't had  much time to keep up the public
> distributions.  I am planning on releasing the latest code shortly
> (within a week).

Thank you very much, no urgency: just political information !
I don't use jacl any more (no more need) although I keep yet subscribed
to this mailing list (tcljava).
I working on a little first program in ruby (not jruby for now). I =20
choose to
use Tk for the GUI because:
- I already know it (old Editeur de texte STEAD, old GRED grafcet =20
editor, ...)
- It's true multiplaform (numerous other Gui toolkit claims that too,
   but it's difficult to port Gtk, Qt, WxyzWidget.... to other plateform
   as native Gui without installation...
   Tk is already part of " courant interpreters (perl, python,
   ruby, ocaml, ...)

No one of these languages advertise about Tcl: they just have "stolen"
it's GUI feature...
Also the only standard GUI in Java (provided with the JDK) is Swing.
If Tk would be ported to Java, then Tk would be the first true
Multi-platform (even with Java platform) GUI !

That's why I asked for the future of Swank.


> I've  had another person ask about JRuby and Swank.  I've never
> looked at JRuby code to see how much trouble it would be to port.
> I'm guessing it depends a bit on whether there is something like the
> Tcl Interp class that can be used for variables and exceptions.  A
> lot of the Swank code is automatically generated using a Jacl script
> so it might be possible to change these scripts a bit to generate
> code that would be a lot closer to what JRuby needs.

I'm just a scripting user, so I don't know about deep binding of
Tk/Swank/Ruby/Jruby/Java.
But as there already exists an OO Tk binding with Ruby,
and There exists a port of Tk core to Java (with Swank).
It seems not impossible that some Jruby developer to port the ruby Tk =20=

extension
o Jruby.
As Sun seem to push JRuby, perhaps it could be push the major extension
of Ruby into Jruby too : Tk ?
For that, Bruce could:
- either Bruce work with Sun to push Swank as a standard Tk port
   into Java (... then rebuild the jacl specific binding to Swank :-)
- either Sun is doing the Tk port to Java itself
- either Bruce  allow a fork of Swank to be take from the Jruby team
- either Sun keep JRuby without Tk extension (there already have =20
Swing...)

I don't believe very much to the first solution !!
(too much work without interest for Bruce),
neither to the second one.
The third solution seems possible if the JRuby show enough interest,
and if Bruce is OK (licence problem ?)

Function of the answer to this message, I'll probably post a message
on the com.lang.ruby group.
The goal is to test the Ruby community about the interest of the Tk
port to Java (then to Jruby)


> On the other hand, why not use Jacl?

The question is not about jacl, but about Tcl.
My interest is in a general interpreted language for replacing Tcl =20
which is:
- consistent, as clean as Tcl, as simple as Tcl, as dynamic as TCL
- Object Oriented (*no* standard OO system yet provided with Tcl)
- with correct package provided as standard (tcllib is *not* part on =20
tcl)
- available in Java

The harder point is the first one!
But after having had to do some PHP (yes, you know to language
invented as a student, probably friend from the Apache Team)
I understood that the best things rarely win!
So I choose the best one (at my point of vu): Ruby from system
tools to high level web tools (Ruby on Rails)

- python is less OO than "tcl without OO extensions"
- Groovy (strongly Ruby like) would be better, but is only for Java.
- Perl is a write-only language


> I'll let you know as soon as I release the next version.
> cheers,

Thank very much
-- Maurice


> Bruce
>
> Bruce A. Johnson, President
> Web    www.onemoonscientific.com
>
>
> On Dec 5, 2006, at 9:53 AM, Maurice Diamantini wrote:
>
>> Bonjour =E0 tous !
>>
>> (sorry for my bad english and error or missing of courtesy)
>>
>> I'd like to know if Swank  (port of Tk to Java for using with TCL)
>> is still alive ?
>> I just learned the answer is "yes" from a recent post.
>>
>> So the real question is:
>>    is there any chance that Swank could be usable with jruby?
>>
>> As you know, Sun (which helped for making Tk multiplatform)
>> has recently engage two guy for working on jruby (port of Ruby to
>> Java)
>>
>> (J)?Ruby is the only (used) language which is as clean and consistent
>> that
>> Tcl, It would be great if Tk was also usable is the Java world !