Re: [tcltk-perl] radical rethink of Tk's loading ... (no C)

[Jeff H. <je...@Ac...>]

Vadim Konovalov wrote:
>>This reduced Tcl::Tk to only .pm files.  That means we can
>>consider collapsing it all into the 'Tcl' distribution.  Is
>>this something we should consider?
> 
> I think this is really good.
> 
> For me, it was not very clear from very beginning why those must be two
> modules. I supposed 'Tcl' module without Tcl::Tk needed for those who needs
> Tcl without Tk, but I thought it is quite rare when a person must use Tcl
> but can't use Tk.
> 
> What name of final distribution will be? I suggest moving to Tcl-Tk.

I was thinking of leaving it as "Tcl" (the distro), and it
includes modules for 'use Tcl' and 'use Tcl::Tk'.  The use of
Tcl::Tk can and is still independent of those that still want
to just use Tcl.

Also, we might want to consider a bigger number jump if we do
this (perhaps to 1.0?).  At the same time, we can remove some
of the older bits of cruft exposed in the C API.  Every time I
look at some of those exposed bits, it reminds me of Tcl circa
1994.  We should move beyond that and make the integration
between the two really seamless.

>>Disadvantages - are we going to reach a painful growth level?
>>Will Tcl::Tk have numerous submodules eventually that we want
>>to split out?  Will there be C components for other Tk-related
>>modules that we don't yet support, but would like to?
> 
> 
> You mean, once we'll remove Tk.xs it will be not possible to add C code
> afterwards?
> But in this case code could be just added to Tcl.xs
> 
> Or I did not understood another possible problems with this?

If we remove Tk.xs, it means we will not be compiling anything
that requires any direct build connection to Tk.  We rely on
Tcl to handle that, treating Tk just like any other module we
would load (as Tk really is now in the Tcl world).  If you
wanted to add Tk_* C API invocations, that would argue for
maintaining the separate Tcl-Tk dist.

> However removing any C code from Tcl::Tk does not necessarily mean we must
> join both modules. We might do joining a little bit later.

Correct, so perhaps I'll just remove the Tcl::Tk C stuff and we
can reconsider joining the modules at a later date, after we
have adjusted to Tcl::Tk being pure Perl, and not missing any
access to Tk_* C APIs.

> I vote for moving forward.

OK, if there are no other objections, I'll do this tomorrow and
set both Tcl and Tcl-Tk to 0.80 (prep'd for a weekend release).

Jeff