Tcl/Tk 8.4 support

[Lloyd Lim <lim@bmrc.berkeley.edu>]

We eventually need to move Mash to Tcl/Tk 8.4.  Tcl/Tk 8.4 is still in 
the alpha stages so there's probably lots of time.  But it'll probably 
be a significant amount of work.

8.4 restricts access to Tcl/Tk internals.  This doesn't affect most 
modern Tcl/Tk users because they are well-behaved.  Mash is not 
well-behaved and it often does things that aren't considered clean.

Why is Tcl/Tk 8.4 important?  In general, we'd like to keep Mash 
current with Tcl/Tk to benefit from new bug fixes and features.  If 
we're current, we can also get them to fix bugs in Tcl/Tk instead of 
fixing them locally.  But a flashier reason is that 8.4 has native 
Macintosh OS X support.  We want to use that.

Many of us at BMRC are tied up with higher-priority tasks.  Some of us 
would love to work on it, but we're just too busy.

This would be a perfect project for someone outside BMRC.  Since 
changes for 8.4 are likely to be compatible with 8.3 also, the work 
could be done gradually and committed into our CVS a piece at a time.  
The work would be fairly isolated from other Mash projects, although 
the person would need to communicate with me regularly.

Any takers?

Lloyd