[Newbies] Image Best Practices

[Shawn MacIntyre]

On May 4, 2006, at 9:03, Ron Teitelbaum wrote:

[snip]
>> Thank you once again!
>
> You are welcome! I hope that helps.  It's always good to get the  
> programming
> flow and organization worked out before pushing ahead.  A little  
> work to get
> it right up front will pay off tremendously down the line.

Hi Ron and all,

That is exactly my sentiment. :) I have another questions to ask  
related to programming workflow in Squeak:

I am a little uncertain about the best practices when dealing with a  
system that lives in an image. I have been experimenting with  
packages on squeakmap and exploring the base 3.8 image I downloaded.  
I seem to manage to break it beyond my ability repair it with some  
ease ;-) I now have about 20 somewhat functioning images. :)

My next step was augmenting the base 3.8 with packages that I have  
found that work together and that I like: such as Seaside and the  
shout workspace. I am now using this a my base for my  
experimentation. Is this the normal process?

Basically, I have lived all my life with files, how should I  
understand the workflow with images? Could you describe your standard  
workflow while developing under squeak?

How can I rollback package adds from Squeakmap or loading new  
versions with Monticello? Or is this always a risk process since  
anything in the system can be modified a package or a change set?  
That would be fine if it was the case; I would just have to modify my  
practices then.

What about versions of the image. From lurking around I see some  
people using 3.7 and some using 3.8. Now with the beta of 3.9 (which  
looks very pretty)  out ... is there any recommend image version to  
use? I have been using 3.8 because it seems to be the "official"  
version. What do most squeak developers do in this situation? Is it  
okay to run a different version of the VM from the image? It seems to  
work for me.

One last key binding question: Is there anything like Alt-Tab to  
rotate windows? Or close/minimize/maximize windows? Or minimize all  
windows? I do most of my experiment on my 12" powerbook and I quickly  
find that I fill the screen with windows. What is the most manageable  
way to deal with this?

Finally, let talk browsers. I have been using the standard browser  
but I have seen the Star browser and heard of the re-factoring  
browser. For a new user working on building an app with Seaside, is  
there a recommended browser?

phew .... thank you again! I think I have made more progress today  
then in the past three months! The pieces fit together a bit better.
Shawn

--
Shawn MacIntyre
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada