comp.lang.tcl, also known as clt or c.l.t, is a Usenet group whose topic is Tcl

RS: A note to other contributors: references to this newsgroup are marked up as live links by Wiki if they appear in the form news:comp.lang.tcl (RS)

Comments  edit

Bryan Oakley 2001-11-23, wrote on c.l.t: This group is more like a school playground where the place is filled with kids who see gems when other people only see rocks, and everyone shares in the magic of a found treasure even if it's really just something a grown-up threw away. And when they find something that truly is junk it is just thrown away with a laugh, and a race to find the next cool thing :-)

Resources  edit

Usenet

This wiki page has references (under Servers) to several NNTP servers that can be used to provide access to comp.lang.tcl.

comp.lang.tcl at groups.google.com

This is a (presumably) complete archive of the group, and allows replying to messages and posting new mesages, though the interface for posting and how it formats messages are less than ideal.

See Also  edit

Effective ways to request help with Tcl-related problems

noteworthy off-topic postings to c.l.t

How to read answers posted on the comp.lang.tcl newsgroup

NNTP

Tcl and comp.lang.tcl 'First Posts' on Google, Tom Poindexter, 2001-12-12

Tom describes some of the history of the newsgroup

[1]

LV: I will add one - here's the first appearance of the Tcl source code on usenet!. (This link doesn't work anymore. Anyone have a good link?)

Dirty Dozen

comp.lang.tcl.announce  edit

There was a second usenet newsgroup titled comp.lang.tcl.announce, which was removed by the Big-8 Management Board (which controls the "official" usenet groups) in 2010 as the moderator had been uncontactable for years (see below). There is an archive at https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/comp.lang.tcl.announce. The formal removal process is detailed in the most recent thread.

Show Old discussion of comp.lang.tcl.announce

Other Tcl Newsgroups  edit

Descriptions followed by ? have to be checked

[fa.macintosh.tcl]

Norway - Mac relative ?

[fa.tcl-users]

Norway ?

[fido7.mo.tcl]

Moldavia ?

[fido7.ru.tcl]

Russia ?

fj.comp.lang.tcl

Fiji / Japan ?

fr.comp.lang.tcl

France

han.comp.lang.tcltk

Korea ?

[pl.comp.lang.tcl : pl.comp.lang.tcl

Poland

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LV: I'm relatively certain that the Macintosh tcl newsgroup references are not to our own Tcl Command Language Tcl, but instead to a C/C++ product that was (is?) available on the Mac platform.

Etiquette  edit

Not the place for binaries.

One of the cardinal rules, though, of newsgroups is relevancy. If your posting - whatever the topic - is not relevant to Tcl and/or one of its extensions or applications, then it probably belongs elsewhere.

Keep the signal-to-noise ratio high: avoid 'lots of references/updates/etc. on a daily (or even weekly) basis.

Double, triple, quadruple-check every bit of code that will be posted. Recently, Cameron Laird wrote regarding a wish for usenet posters:

".... One of the most important things for junior programmers to learn is that top coders know how to test and automate, and expect to do both these things at all opportunities. I'm inclined to take Donal at his word, and believe that he makes no fewer errors than others, and quite possibly more. However, he's quite good at verifying his own work.

If we could somehow teach a fraction of that to incoming Usenet posters ... well, the world would be a different place."

comp.lang.tcl values professionalism. Larry Virden recently wrote in a newsgroup for some other language:

 According to Martien Verbruggen <mgjv@tradingpost.com.au>:
 :On Thu, 04 Jan 2001 01:29:53 GMT,
 :       John Hall <jhall@ifxonline.com> wrote:
 :> I see a lot of "you work stupid" and "RTFM" on this list.
 :
 :Mostly when it is deserved.

Treating someone poorly, regardless of their inappropriate behavior, seldom converts them to one's point of view. It creates barriers, and in all likelihood burns bridges which, one day, one may regret having burned (imagine if you will finding yourself across the hiring desk from someone that you might have treated that way...)

That being said, concise, accurate, and pointed responses are also valued, even when they sometimes seem a bit brusque.

Avoid mentioning the mentioning one or a few specific solutions in almost every posting, unless those are the only or uncontroverted best solutions.

Serious and well-considered employer announcements are currently considered acceptable, but that may change with the volume of postings. The should be clearly marked as such in the subject.

History: Google Groups Outage, 2007-01  edit

This section remains for historical purposes, and to point the way if something similar ever happens again.

LV 2007-01-11: this morning when I visit the google groups comp.lang.tcl group, I see no postings past Jan 9th. I don't recall whether I saw anything newer yesterday.

However, just wanted to give others a heads up that something might be wrong.

Same here, no updates on http://groups.google.co.uk/group/comp.lang.tcl since Jan 9. Other google usenet groups I checked seem to be getting updates, and when I checked another news server from home last night it had more recent comp.lang.tcl postings - can't access that from work though Colin Macleod.

AM: 2007-01-11: There was a maintenance update the other day, but since then I have not seen any updates of the postings. (Maintenance update to what?)

2007-01-11: FWIW, the news server news.chi.sbcglobal.net has no postings since around noon central time on January 10, 2007. This, for nearly all newsgroups except sbcglobal.* (based on very limited spot checking). Very odd.

EMJ: It is annoying if your only accessible view of a newsgroup is not up-to-date, but since message propagation is inherently decentralized and asynchronous, pure randomness may be enough to explain it. And if not, local policies or problems (server or "nearby" network components) are the most likely cause. Google often seems to ignore groups for extended periods, quite possibly something to do with the way incoming messages are integrated into the Google archive.

LV: The google site appears to continue to have problems with a subset of groups for the third straight day. I'm unable to locate a free nntp server. Given that I suspect google has become the primary method of accessing comp.lang.tcl, unless something happens shortly, we may have lost that newsgroup as well.

LV 2007-01-12: Apparently someone at google groups noticed our problem with comp.lang.tcl (I know I emailed them several times about it). I am this sfternoon seeing articles appear on the newsgroup. Now if we could do something about comp.lang.tcl.announce :-( ...

Historical  edit

comp.lang.tcl has in the past been available at the following URL's:

deja.com

mailgate

interbulletin

mirror.utcorp.net

mirrored comp.lang.tcl using TclNNTPD

mailandnews.com

news.banctec.com

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