I ran tests before choosing 7.6, and 8x was much slower. This test is a 10-15 line TCL loop to read through a file containing around 500K lines, do 3-4 string operations, set an ns_share array entry:
2.3.3, TCL 7.4: 536 seconds 3.4, TCL 8x: 374 seconds 3.4, TCL 7.6: 222 seconds 8x was 68% slower, plus it is more picky about list structures and blew up on of our scripts, might have other compatibility issues, and the internationalization stuff, from what I can tell, is going to cause issues I didn't (and don't) want to deal with. I know it's important, but from other discussions on the list it sounds half-baked. I'd gladly move if the benefit is there. Except for this one malformed bucket crash problem, I have no complaints about 7.6 and don't see the benefits of going to a slower version of TCL that is also going to give us character set heartburn... Of course, it'll be a problem for us when AS 4 is released w/o TCL 7.6 support. I understand the reasons TCL 7.6 is being dumped - it has hacks to make ns_shares work well. But we use lots of ns_shares. So we're likely to stay behind again, like we did with 2.3.3, and in a couple of years I'll post a note explaining why we are still running that ancient 3.4 release. :) Production sites don't care about bells and whistles much. We care about stability and benefits vs. costs, including the time to understand something new, implement it, have a fallback plan, etc. It kinda bugs me that just because a software group comes out with new releases of software every 3 months, everyone is expected to jump on the bandwagon. Putting bug fixes back into released versions, to some reasonable extent, is really a big help to production sites that aren't able to switch environments every 6-months to a year. Jim > > Jim Wilcoxson wrote: > > > > We get this error quite frequently on one of our servers - 5-10 times > > per day. I read somwhere about an error in the TCL 7.6 expr handling > > that could cause it. I dunno... There are only a few modules we run > > on this server that we don't run on the others, and we have reviewed > > them several times w/o finding a problem. Doesn't mean there isn't > > one obviously, but we can't find it. > > did not realize tcl 7.6 was being used here. > i guess there could be some aolserver+tcl hashtable prob in that case.. > > i'd just bite the bullet and go to tcl 8.x myself. > tcl 7.6 is just plain ancient. it's more than 5 years old. > your choice of course, but you probabaly won't get a lot > of new help w/ 7.6 these days.. > > -mike > > > > > Jim > > > > > > > > Janine Sisk wrote: > > > > > > > > Anyone know what that error is? It stopped one of my 3.2+ad12 servers in > > > > it's tracks tonight. Is it just one of those flukes of nature, or should I > > > > worry? > > > > > > you should worry (to some degree) > > > this kind of message usually means you've got memory corruption > > > happening of some sort. either something is smashing memory of you've got > > > some tcl extension that's not being thread safe. > > > might be time for you to break out purify.. > > > > > > -mike > > > > > > > > > > > thanks, > > > > > > > > janine > > > > > > > > -- > > > > Janine Sisk > > > > President/CEO > > > > furfly.net, LLC > > > > Mont Vernon, NH > > > > Phone: 603-672-1122 > > > >
