Hi Cees -
I think there are some areas where this can work but you have to be careful to group the right things together. Like, for example, Morphic and MVC are inherently incompatible from my point of view, because they are so different and historically, people who have an interest in one tend to have not too much of an interest in the other. The "core class library" (whatever that may be) might make some more sense here.
OTOH, why force the matter? If you think that Files and Network should be combined into a single team, you can propose that right now. There isn't really a need to make a top-down decision by saying "these are the teams and that's it". Also, I'm not sure I follow your concerns - it seems to me that we really don't have quite enough experience to say what works and what doesn't, so maybe we should give the current setup a bit of time to see if it works out.
So bottom line is that I think I'm neutral on the overall idea but I am strictly against forcing a decision top-down (like "defining" a UI team that consists of Morphic and MVC) since I think that this decision is best left to the people doing the work.
Cheers, - Andreas
Cees De Groot wrote:
Dear Squeakers,
A happy 2006! May the Gods of Smalltalk finally prevail over the dark-roasted side this year ;-).
Recall that I proposed, just before xmas, to move from the current "per-package" team setup (which, in theory, would lead to 10-15 teams maintaining small packages) to a "per logical subpart" team setup, where the subsets would be components like "Core Class Library" (Kernel, Objects, Collections), "I/O" (Files, Network), "UI" (Morphic, MVC), "Development" (Tools and assorted stuff).
It's been a bit silent on the topic - this could indicate a lack of interest, an abundance of people enjoying a holiday, or a silent approval. For the record, Bryce, Brent and Doug reacted in a positive manner, so so far we have 4 in favor and 0 against ;-)
Anyway, if you approve (or not), it'd be helpful to say so even with a little "me too" posting. I think it is a simple and quite logical step, merely fine-tuning what we are already doing, but it could well be that I'm overlooking something here. And with just three people publicly backing the idea, it's a little bit thin ice to start implementing this...