the state of tcl

The State of Tcl

Scriptics Corporation 2275 E. Bayshore Rd., Suite 101 Palo Alto, CA 94303 650-843-6900

John OusterhoutScriptics Corporation

http://www.scriptics.com

September 16, 1998, slide 2The State of Tcl

Outline

Major events of the last year

Current state of Tcl

Scriptics: mission, products, etc.

Marketing Tcl

What’s next: Tcl 8.1 and beyond


The Year in Review Tcl as of the 1997 Tcl Conference:

– Tcl/Tk 8.0 almost finished– SunScript recently canceled– Concerns over lack of marketing for Tcl

Tcl/Tk 8.0:– Final release in August, 1997– Latest patches (8.0.3) in September, 1998– Most extensions now work under 8.0

Tcl/Tk 8.1:– Currently in alpha release– Internationalization (Unicode support)– Thread safe– Improved regular expressions


The Year in Review, cont’d

Tcl Consortium:– Created by Michael McLennan– Director: Peter Salus– Mission: publicize Tcl, organize the Tcl community

Tcl Blast! CD-ROM:– Created by the Tcl Consortium– Core software plus many extensions– Bundled together– Precompiled for many platforms

Formation of Scriptics (more on this later) End of the Sun Tcl project


The Year in Review, cont’d

Java support:– Tcl Blend: use Java in C Tcl applications– Jacl: new Tcl interpreter written in Java

[incr Tcl] 3.0 Many new open source extensions Open source software becomes respectable:

– Publicity for Linux, Perl, Apache, etc.– Netscape announcement to free Mozilla– Linux support from Oracle, Informix, Corel, etc.– New open source companies: Sendmail, Scriptics, etc.– O’Reilly Open Source Summit and Open Source

Developers Day


Tcl Download Rate

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

7/1/

95

9/1/

95

11/1

/95

1/1/

96

3/1/

96

5/1/

96

7/1/

96

9/1/

96

11/1

/96

1/1/

97

3/1/

97

5/1/

97

7/1/

97

9/1/

97

11/1

/97

1/1/

98

3/1/

98

5/1/

98

7/1/

98

9/1/

98

Wee

kly

Tcl

Do

wn

load

s (0

00's

)

WindowsUnixMac


Tcl Today

Download rates from Scriptics:– 8,000-10,000 Tcl downloads/week:

Windows: 60-65%Unix: 30-35%Macintosh: 5%

Changes since last year:– Overall volume up 2x– Windows has gained volume and market share– Unix has maintained volume, lost market share– Macintosh has lost volume and market share

Estimated developer community: > 500,000


Tcl Demographics

Level of experience:None: 21%Beginner: 35%Intermediate: 28%Advanced: 16%

Other Tcl developers in your group/company:0: 38%1-3: 38%4-9: 16%10-19: 5%20-49: 2%50+: 2%

Why did you start using Tcl?I read about it: 45%A friend told me: 22%My company uses it: 15%School project: 5%Other: 13%

Primary use of Tcl:Company: 41%Hobby: 24%Research: 19%School: 8%Consulting: 8%

Results from recent survey (~ 5000 Tcl downloaders):


Tcl Usage

Tcl has become popular in several “verticals”: Dynamic Web content generation:

AOL, CNET, Travelocity, Vignette Finance (many Wall Street firms) Automated testing:

Cisco, Motorola, Newbridge Networks System management/factory automation:

Nations Bank, Motorola Electronic design automation:

Cadence, Synopsys, Mentor, Analogy, etc.


Scriptics Corporation

Founded in January, 1998 by John Ousterhout and Sarah Daniels.

Financed by “angel” investors:– Andy Bechtolsheim (founder of Sun, Granite)– Pehong Chen (founder/CEO of BroadVision)– Several others

Half of Sun team joined us Currently 14 people Expect 30-40 people within a year First product shipping now: TclPro 1.0


Scriptics Business Model

Balance between open source and commercial development

Continue evolution of open source Tcl/Tk core

Create commercial products:– Development tools– Enhanced Tcl platform– Professional services:

» Support, training, consulting» Covers Tcl core and bundled

extensions as well as tools and proprietary extensions

Open source Tcl core

Proprietary extensions

Bundled open source extensionsT

oo

ls

Services


Business Strategy

Phase I: meet needs of existing Tcl developers– TclPro: general purpose, mostly tools– Services: training, support, consulting– Win market leaders in selected verticals as customers

Phase II: extend Tcl platform– Proprietary platform extensions (COM, CORBA, XML, …)– Higher-level solutions in verticals– Leverage market leaders


TclPro 1.0

First step towards an IDE for Tcl:

TclPro Debugger: source-level debugger with nice GUI

TclPro Checker: find errors without running application

TclPro Wrapper: create self-contained applications for distribution

TclPro Compiler: protect your source code

Precompiled Tcl/Tk 8.0.3 core libraries plus bundled extensions:– [incr Tcl] 3.0, [incr Tk], [incr Widget]


Future Plans for TclPro Additional development tools:

– Profiler– Test coverage tools– A GUI builder for Tk– Smart Tcl code editor– Project management tools

Support for key enterprise protocols & frameworks – Java, ActiveX, CORBA, Web, XML, etc.

More widgets for Tk Bundle more of the popular Tcl extensions Support more platforms (Linux!)


Open Source Products and Services Tcl 8.0.3

– Many bug fixes– Core support for [incr Tcl] extension– Released September, 1998

Tcl Resource Center– Easy access to all Tcl resources on the Internet:

» Free downloads» Commercial products, services» Documentation» Other Web sites» News, events, etc.

– Catalyst for user contributions– Freely available now at www.scriptics.com


Scriptics’ Long-Term Challenge

Make our products attractive enough that many Tcl developers choose to buy them

Evolve open source Tcl rapidly enough to satisfy Tcl developers who don’t use our products

Scriptics


Symbiosis

Open source and commercial activities support eachother:

Open source Tcl core is Scriptics’ entry-level product: attracts new users

Resource Center helps Scriptics reach potential customers

Profits from Scriptics products allow us to improve open source Tcl

Resource Center benefits Tcl community Bundled extensions provide leverage for open source

developers


Marketing Tcl Tcl is widely used, not often heard about Scriptics goal: raise Tcl visibility 2 major PR events in 1998:

– Company launch (July)– TclPro product launch (September)

Focus for PR:– 50% on Tcl/scripting– 50% on company/product– Briefed both press and industry analysts

Generated substantial press:– ComputerWorld, InfoWorld, EE Times, Inter@ctive Week, SunWorld Online,

Web Vantage, Network World, TechWeb, Developer.com, Application Development Trends, ENT, ...

– More press coming


Messages for Tcl PR

Company launch:– Scripting vs. system programming (white paper)– Articles mostly written about open source company

Product launch:– Reworked message: integration applications– Strong positive reception from analysts and press


The Business Problem: Integration

Companies have diverse collections of resources:– Devices: manufacturing equipment, test

equipment, etc.– Applications: Web servers, ERP, EDA, etc.– Data sources: live feeds, databases, Web, etc.– Data formats: HTML, XML, etc.– Protocols: CORBA, DCOM, HTTP, etc.– Components: ActiveX, JavaBeans, etc.

The integration problem: how to link, coordinate, manage, and customize these resources


Drivers for Integration Applications and Tcl Dynamic Web content generation

– AOL, Travelocity.com, CNET: must link to multiple databases and apps to create customized Web pages

Networked control of devices– Cisco, Newbridge: must coordinate multiple pieces of test

equipment for automated testing– Motorola: must coordinate manufacturing equipment

Heterogeneous networks and environments– Nations Bank: must manage diverse systems inherited from mergers– Healthdyne Information Systems: must communicate between

incompatible hospital subsystems Electronic data interchange

– Financial services: must monitor many data feeds, selectively transmit information to traders

Heterogeneity is increasing over time


Integration Applications

Different characteristics than traditional programming tasks:– Driving problem is linkage/coordination, not

algorithms and data structures– Must support a variety of interfaces, protocols, formats– Loosely coupled/distributed– Often involves automating business processes– Requires rapid/unpredictable evolution– Often involves less sophisticated programmers

Traditional system programming languages (C, C++, Java) poorly suited to integration:– Too static, inflexible: compiled, strongly typed


Tcl’s Unique Advantages

A superior platform for integration applications:

Easy to connect any X to Y

Write scripts to manage in powerful ways

Tcl provides 5-10x faster development thanC, C++, Java

X YTcl

Interpreter


The Tcl Platform

Create Tcl extensions: apps, devices, protocols appear as new Tcl commands.

Write Tcl scripts to integrate, extend

Build business rules, GUIs as Tcl scripts

Result: powerful, programmable platform for integration, management

Oracle

Sybase

Display

SNMP Web

CORBA

DCOM

TIB

SAP

XMLTest

equipment

SECS(IC mfg)

Tk(GUIs)

Extensible, embeddable Tcl interpreter


Embedding Tcl

Link Tcl interpreter into application

Expose application features as Tcl extensions

Write Tcl scripts to automate, customize, extend application

Use Tcl extensions to integrate with other apps and protocols

Application

Result: powerful, flexible applications Oracle

Display

DCOM

Web

Tk

Tcl Interpreter


Future Marketing/PR Efforts

Scriptics will continue to work for greater Tcl visibility Goal: make Tcl well known at CIO level How can you help?

– Tell your friends– Tell your boss’s boss– Write papers– Give talks

Scriptics speakers program:– Tell us what Tcl topics you’d like to speak on– Our PR firm will look for opportunities and help make

arrangements for you


Planning for the Future

Tcl/Tk 8.1:– Work resuming now– Final release targeted for Q1 1999

TclPro:– TclPro 1.0.1 planned for Q4 1998– TclPro 1.1 planned for Q1 1999– Come to TclPro BOF tomorrow for details

Tcl/Tk 8.2:– Probable release date: late 1999 or early 2000– Just starting to think about features

Open read access to Tcl and Tk workspaces:– Coming soon to cvs.scriptics.com


New Feature Survey

Polled Tcl/Tk community with survey Interposed in download path for Tcl 8.0, Tcl 8.1 Also available from Scriptics home page >5000 surveys filled out over 3 weeks Demographic data New feature needs:

– Rate importance of various new features (1-5)– Rate for today, 1-2 years from now

Results tabulated:– % of respondents with rating 4-5 for 1-2 years from now– Average rating for 1-2 years from now


SurveyResults:

Drag and drop 60%, 3.7

New widgets 58%, 3.6

GUI builder 55%, 3.5

Windows perf. 49%, 3.3

Tk testing tools 48%, 3.3

Java integration 48%, 3.3

Code editor 46%, 3.2

Profiling/test cov. 46%, 3.3

Widget inspector 43%, 3.2

CORBA 40%, 3.0

XML 39%, 3.0

Megawidgets 39%, 3.1

ActiveX 24%, 2.4

DCOM 19%, 2.3

Experts

Megawidgets 60%, 3.7

GUI builder 41%, 3.1


Beginners



Survey Results, cont’d

Surprises from surveys:– Top items are all related to Tk– Not much interest in ActiveX, DCOM

Likely future directions:– Lots of improvements to Tk– Support for new protocols– New tools


Conclusions Tcl usage continues to grow rapidly Several great things happened in the last year:

– New releases, extensions– Tcl Consortium– Scriptics– Open source software became respectable

More great things will happen in the future:– Increasing mainstream acceptance of Tcl– Improvements in Tcl/Tk core– More tools and commercial services

Scriptics will work to foster open source Tcl community as well as products

the state of tcl

Documents