Hi,
Well, I've read the 246 messages that I collected during the Great Modularity Debate (GMD) in addition to the info on various Swikis for ModSqueak/Ginsu (Joseph Pelrine and Stephane Ducasse), Oasis (Les Tyrrell), and Environments (Dan Ingalls and Henrik Gedenryd). And, I have probably missed a few things along the way.
As far as I can tell, Dan Ingalls wants to "distribute active Squeak content as projects on the Internet" which leads to "modularity of projects" which in turn leads to a "component architecture" for Squeak. Correct?
Other folks have noted the lack of any crisp definitions or consensus for terms like "project", "package", "module", "creation", or "component", much less terms like "component architecture", "component framework", or "component backplanes". Clemens Szyperski discusses many of these concepts at length in his book on Component Software, but I'm having a hard time correlating Szyperski's book with concepts and ideas discussed in the GMD.
Apparently, the general plan is to schlepp along and figure all of this out as we go. Oey veh!
As engineers, scientists, and programmers, we tend to view the world in terms of "projects". We are trained and educated in this manner. In fact, some real engineers live their entire lives as a string of interesting projects. <grin> Although I'm a computer engineer, I usually don't think in terms of projects.
Whenever I want to do something, I usually head off the the library, bookstore, or my basement bookcases, collect some books, and spread them out on my workspace which also includes pens, pencils, piles of papers, stickies, notepads, a computer, some hot tea, and a little music. While I work on each small task sequentially, I'm usually working upon a lot of different things at once. Sometimes, I even work off the coffee table in the living room or a lawn table on the deck in the back yard.
Books are my basic unit of information, knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. Most books typically consist of a title, table of contents, preface, introduction, a string of chapters, notes, and an index all bound between two hard (or soft) covers. A book can consist of several volumes. Sometimes books are divided into parts or sections. But basically, books are made up of a string of chapters. Books are collected into respositories called libraries where they are classified according to some rigorous scheme so mere mortals can easily find them. Squeak "projects" in Squeak 3.0 seem close to what I want in a book. There is even a construct called a BookMorph.
So, why on earth would I want to modularize a book? How does one modularize "Gone With The Wind", the Bible, "Lord Of The Rings" or the Iliad? Why would somebody want to do so? How would one do it even if they could?
I can just see myself going to a library to rummage around in bins full of "chapters" (modules?), trying to collect enough of these pieces that might help me with my work.
I thought that the primary purpose of Squeak was to create dynamic books that would reside in a hardware device called a DynaBook which could reach through to the Internet in order to access huge libraries of dynamic books all over the world. Instead, it sounds like folks are creating components for building projects that reside in a hardware device called a DynaProject. IMHO, a DynaBook and a DynaProject are not the same critter. No, not at all. Please, help me out here.
Cheers, Roger.....
PS: I also don't see how children have a ghost of a chance when it comes to manipulating components in any meaningful way when highly educated engineers and scientists are having trouble doing it. Likewise, Smalltalk may have been created with children in mind, but it takes highly educated proferssionals to use Smalltalk effectively. Likewise, my grandchild gives me lots of stuff to hang on my refrigerator door, but in no sense is this real, or serious, "art" or "literature", dynamic or otherwise.
PPS: To end this rant on a more positive note, I have no doubt that highly educated and/or talented people will be able to create dynamic books for "children of all ages", but this ain't kid's stuff. :-) So, let's get back to worrying about DynaBooks, rather than DynaProjects.