[Newbies] Image Best Practices

Todd Blanchard tblanchard at mac.com
Fri May 5 06:13:26 UTC 2006


On May 4, 2006, at 5:49 PM, Shawn MacIntyre wrote:
>
> 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. :)

The usual way I break one is by loading in a library from squeakmap  
that runs into a problem.  Saving your image is a checkpoint,  
remember to save after every major modification.  I also export my  
current project in Monticello regularly so I can load it into a new  
image if necessary.

> 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?

Yes, most people will build a seed image to use as the base for most  
projects.  I personally immediately get rid of all the windows, the  
flaps, and the mouse, load up shout, and squeakmap, and then save that.

> 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?

I get an image - pull in all the libraries I need.  Save it.  Start  
developing.  As soon as I have a few classes in a package, create a  
monticello project and start saving versions.  When I hit a good  
checkpoint I export a new Monticello version and often do a "save as  
new version" of my image.

> 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.

I generally save just before trying to load something.  If the load  
fails, I just quit and relaunch.

> 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.

Generally VMs track image versions - but not that closely.  Seaside  
people are using base images based on 3.7 mostly.  They work fine  
with the 3.8 and 3.9 VMs.  Image format changes become incompatible  
when major versions flip.  I would not expect a 4.0 VM to run a 3.x  
image.

> 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?

I usually use the vanilla browser but you should play around and see  
which one you like.  I really liked the whisker browser for awhile  
but its not included by default and I got tired of loading it all the  
time.

-Todd Blanchard

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