Tcl-URL! - weekly Tcl news and links

QOTW:  "Default arguments are good for 'in-band' defaults, like the '1'
default for [incr].  They are no good for procs that need to behave
differently when called with different numbers of arguments." - Jonathan
Bromley, somewhat controversially


Thanks to Arjen Markus for his weekly summary of Wiki activity:
  Some beautiful graphics on the Wiki this week ...
  
  Non-graphical stuff
  - As with so many things, this template system for Tcl code is
    only one of a number of such tools: <http://wiki.tcl.tk/18175>.
    Use it for instance for generating web pages ...
    
  - Here is a very simple but very effective tool to input all manner
    of UNICODE characters into your files: <http://wiki.tcl.tk/24480>
  
  - Tcl's error messages are usually very good. But for the [expr]
    command a bit more information is often welcome. Here is a 
    small tool that fills in the missing pieces: <http://wiki.tcl.tk/24389>
  
  - The pen-ultimate tool for managing Tcl packages ... quite a few
    promises there: <http://wiki.tcl.tk/24662>
  
  Graphical stuff
  - Little balloons on your canvas can be very informative - see
    the screenshot at <http://wiki.tcl.tk/23156> and use the code.
  
  - And for the tree view widget, here is something very similar:
    <http://wiki.tcl.tk/24636>
  
  - Here is a little tool for showing a dialogue window and thereby
    editing whatever global variables your program has ...
    <http://wiki.tcl.tk/24324>
  
  - GRIDPLUS2 is slowly evolving, more widgets and such. And look at
    those screenshots - <http://wiki.tcl.tk/16993>
  
  - The brick engine for developing games in a particular graphical style
    has some nice demos. Try them to get some feeling for what it can
    do - <http://wiki.tcl.tk/19800>
  

Everything Tcl-related you want is probably one or two clicks away in these
pages:
    The "Welcome to comp.lang.tcl" message by Andreas Kupries
        http://www.purl.org/net/tcl-welcome
    comp.lang.tcl is a crucial resource for Tcl practitioners.
    An interesting perspective on its traffic appears at
        http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/about

    The Tcl Developer Site is Tcl's "home base".
	http://www.tcl.tk

    Larry Virden maintains a comp.lang.tcl FAQ launcher.
        http://www.purl.org/NET/Tcl-FAQ/

    Tcl Developer Xchange sponsor, ActiveState, keeps info to 
    onvince your boss Tcl is a good thing
        http://www.tcl.tk/scripting/

    The Tcl'ers Wiki is a huge, dynamic, collaboratively edited repository
    of documentation, examples, tutorials and pontifications on all things 
    Tcl.
        http://wiki.tcl.tk/0
    For the ideal overview of the topics about Tcl most likely to
    interest a newcomer, see "Arts and Crafts ..."
        http://wiki.tcl.tk/969
    There's also a high-quality Wikibook on Tcl:
        http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Programming:Tcl

    ActiveState maintains binaries distribution and development tools
        http://www.activestate.com/Tcl
    along with a Cookbook of Tcl recipes
        http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Tcl

    "La Gazette du Técleux" is an important monthly publication.
	http://wfr.tcl.tk/1159

    deli.cio.us presents an intriguing approach to reference commentary.
    It already aggregates quite a bit of Tcl intelligence.
        http://del.icio.us/tag/tcl

    Cameron Laird tracks several Tcl/Tk references of interest (but
    needs to validate many of the links).
        http://phaseit.net/claird/comp.lang.tcl/

    Years ago, Cetus Links maintained a Tcl/Tk page with verified links
        http://www.cetus-links.org/oo_tcl_tk.html

    "Yahoo! Groups" archives comp.lang.tcl.announce posts--even 
    though clta itself is dormant.
        http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tcl_announce/

We're working on more useful archives of past installments.  Dave 
Williams generously is building up
    http://www.bacomatic.org/~dw/comp/tclurl/index.htm
and of course Google gives us
  http://groups.google.com/groups?oi=djq&as_q=+Tcl-URL&...

Suggestions/corrections for next week's posting are always welcome.

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