[Release] 3.11 status

[Keith Hodges]

Hello All, just a update as to where we are.

My personal life has got a whole lot better recently. No more visiting
hospitals etc, so a bit more time for Squeaking.

Although my commercial project is still a high priority, I have started
to spend time at the weekends working on Squeak stuff that I can also
use as part of my paid work. i.e. not everything is directly 3.11
related, but it does have a contribution to make.

My thinking is still, that 3.11 is about getting tools working really
well for squeak accross the board. The Pharo guys are doing some great
work on the kernel, and we will be able to benefit from their work
significantly in the longer term.

So tools wise:

MC1.6 (LevelPlayingField)
====================

The goal is to have a definitive supported Monticello for everyone who
uses MC1 packages. We expect MC2 to take a while to come into regular
use, but we don't expect MC1 to disappear any time soon.

Matthew is making great progress with Traits support for MC1.6, and I
have been using MC1.6 for my development images. It is really nice and fast.

Sake/Packages
==========
To prepare for smaller images, a good solution for loading things back
in is needed. Building images (like the dev image) also needs a good
solution. To make Sake/Packages even better I have developed an
automatic 'beta' loading feature.

If a package definition (from universes or elsewhere) supplies a url for
loading a package from a repository supported by Installer (e.g.
Installer squeaksource). Packages beta, will dissect that url and
attempt to find the repository and the most recent version from that
repository.

Packages current load: 'Aida'. - will load the released version of
AidaWeb and its dependencies (Swazoo).
Packages beta load: 'Aida'.      - will track down the most recent
version of AidaWeb and Swazoo.

Bob The Builder
============
Bob is very close to completion now that Rio has been updated and revised.

Rio - File/Directory
==============
Key to the workings of Bob. Rio File/Directory package has been revised,
refactored massively, simplified greatly, some more tests and
transparent FTP support has been added (the feature Bob was wiating on).

Logging (Used by Sake and Bob)
========================
Big refactoring, simplification, and much more powerful configuration
options available.  I need this for my commercial project, where I want
my different seaside users to generate separate logs of their activities
on my website.

best regards

Keith