[Xcircuit-dev] insertparam without tcl

[R. Timothy Edwards]

Dear Larry,

> That sounds a lot like the strategy that was in 3.1.24.
> Although the coding in getkeynum() is local, it's very
> invasive -- it temporarily takes over all event handling
> with its own local version.  That code in event.c is not
> used anywhere else in Xcircuit.  If that is indeed the
> right approach, I'll put it back in.

You've probably noticed in XCircuit that I really dislike
code that locks up the program waiting for a response---
there are very few such instances in XCircuit, and those
only exist because I was lazy or in a hurry to get some
solution done.

In this case, the solution (in Tcl/Tk, at least) is to use
the existing "edit parameters" window to generate a callback
that inserts the parameter into the edit string.  For the
non-Tcl version, this would require creating a new window
structure, which is exactly the sort of thing I hate doing
in Xw and Xt.

> Well, no, actually.  I'm just very used to the look and feel of the
> old interface.  Plus, while I have used Tcl, it has always seemed
> like a horrible little language [*].  I have learned a little Python,
> and it's a substantially better language.

I would say that if arrays could be nested in Tcl like dictionaries
can be nested in Python, I'd have a higher opinion of it.

> [*] As my old friend Ken Arnold (a Java partisan) says,
> "Tcl -- it's not a language, it's a tokenizer!"

It's a language if it's internally consistent.  I admit that to get
around the vagaries of tokenizing, Tcl depends on some pretty contrived
constructs.  Even after a couple of years of writing Tcl scripts, I
still have difficulty with the braces vs. brackets vs. quotes and
when to use backslashes, etc., which would not be necessary in a less
tokenized environment.  But when I'm typing commands myself, in real
time, like I do with Magic and IRSIM, I much prefer not having to
type anything except plain alphanumerics.

					Regards,
					Tim

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