The Tcl Developer Xchange and ActiveState have announced the simultaneous release of Tcl/Tk 8.5 and ActiveTcl 8.5, respectively. Tcl is a dynamic programming language available for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, AIX and HP-UX.
"We are are pleased to release a faster, smarter and more powerful version of ActiveTcl," said ActiveState's Jeff Hobbs. "Developers will benefit from new core support for arbitrary-precision integers, a new theming engine and widgets, and numerous other changes to better integrate existing language features in more cohesive ways".
ActiveTcl 8.5 and Tcl/Tk 8.5 offer improved performance and new programmer conveniences. Already based on a high-performance byte-compiled runtime, ActiveTcl 8.5 now runs 10 percent faster than the previous version, due to bytecode optimizations, object caching and reduced memory usage. Developers will also benefit from richer time and date tools including year-2038 compliance, and a new and simpler module packaging standard. Other changes to Tcl 8.5 include:
- Speed: 8.5 now runs 10% faster than 8.4 with bytecode improvements, object caching and reduced memory usage.
- Bignums: Tcl now supports arbitrary-precision integers, which improves math operations on large integers.
- Safer interps: Tcl's powerful safe interpreter mechanism now has improved control of time and command limits in slave interpreters.
- clock command: More robust implementation of command for specifying time, with significant l10n and i18n improvements.
- dictcommand: New data structure that allows access to data by value rather than a variable name, which is substantially faster.
- Additional improvements: Faster list search, new and improved mathematics procedures, anonymous procedures, new ways to package Tcl extensions, Tcl-level custom channel types, file and line location information for each command, and more.
Tk 8.5 highlights include:
- New modern theming engine: New and complementary widgets that make use of platform-specific theming on Mac OS X and Windows to better fit in with those environments, and feature an improved look and feel under X11.
- New widgets: Part of the themed widget set, Tk now has core notebook, combobox, treeview and progressbar widgets.
- text widget: Smooth scrolling, widget peering, and improved procedures for counting and replacing text.
- Font rendering: Now uses anti-aliased text under X11, and a more modern text engine (ATSUI) on Mac OS X.
- Additional improvements: Window transparency, new fullscreen option for windows, enhancements to specific widgets and window layout, and more.
Source releases, the exact changes and ChangeLog for each release are available at:
Change information is also included in each distribution.
