[Xotcl] XOTcl 1.5.4 available

[Jeff Hobbs]

Gustaf Neumann wrote:
> Jeff Hobbs schrieb:
>>>       + provided compatibility with Tcl 8.5
>>>           (currently, this requires the verison of Tcl 8.5
>>>          from CVS head, including the changes for VarReform
	...
>> I know that some extensions poke deeper (especially OO ones), but we 
>> were able to maintain binary compat with itcl.
> the stubs of tcl 8.5 are not the same as tcl 8.4. What i have seen, itcl 
> requires the same new interfaces that xotcl uses. do you expect that tcl 
> 8.5 extensions work for tcl 8.4 and vice versa?

What I expect is that 8.4-compiled extensions work with 8.5.  More 
importantly, it is not just my expectation, but the expectation of most 
Tcl users.

For example, let's say Apple gets the latest xotcl and itcl into the 
latest 8.4-based release for Leopard (although in all likelihood, it is 
too late to update now).  When a user installs 8.5 to test, itcl as 
shipped on the machine would work whereas xotcl will not.  Not the best 
user experience.

While xotcl may rely on whatever stubs officially exports, there are 
many tricks around this, both compile-time and runtime tricks to get 
what you need.  itcl uses these, and I would recommend xotcl doing the 
same in order to improve the user experience.

Jeff