From:  Dean Swan at MITEL on 11/16/99 07:34 PM

Torsten,

     Your enthusiasm for Squeak reminds me of Guy Kawasaki (once upon a time he
was the "official" Mac Evangelist).  It also reminds me of a thing that was once
called the "Arpanet", and how 10 or 12 years ago a former particle physicist
friend of mine (he's now a magazine editor - long story, some people on the list
know who I mean) said of the then "Arpanet", now "Internet", "If the general
public new about this thing, and the information that passes over it every day,
they would outlaw it."  He was implying fear of the awesome power of this
wonderful technology.

     It turns out that history played out a little differently than a lonely PhD
candidate babysitting beam runs at ORNL predicted, but I'd argue that the
general population still doesn't know, and that's why it's not outlawed yet. ;-)
My point is that part of what makes Squeak special is that it resides in its own
little niche of semi-obscurity, unobstructed by the trappings of "true" success,
so it's a bit more personal and familiar.  Some of the things that you wish
for/propose for Squeak could cause the number of agendas for Squeak to multiply
and diverge exponentially, and that would almost surely kill it, so be careful
what you wish for.


                                   -Dean Swan
                                   dean_swan at mitel.com



>From Torsten.Bergmann at phaidros.com on 11/16/99 :

But Squeak is a little bit different: it's not only a Smalltalk-IDE it is
a SYSTEM. If I see Squeak growing I see a lot of people with different
interests
working on this system. Some would like to use Squeak as multimedia
environment,
others would like to use it for web applications, games, programming, ...
Comparing to Java I would say Squeak is the platform and Java the language.

What should we do to keep the squeak platform/system running (some ideas):

 - get squeak closer to commercial Smalltalks (speed and tools)
   Fast bytecode with Jitter is good - but what about a way to compile
native,
   building native libraries from within squeak ?
   Get squeak accepted in the Smalltalk community!

 - get squeak closer to underlying systems (hardware and software)
   Changing UI like VisualWorks is a nice thing, but squeak should have it's
own.
   Getting Squeak closer to Linux, drivers, ... ?

 - break the Smalltalk limits (big image, big object system with
dependencies)
   create interchangeable squeak components with stable interfaces, uniquely
identified
   code, Sandbox for downloaded components, code signing, class caches, ...
   We can learn a lot from COM. In contrast to Java components it is not
limited to one
   language. If you create interfaces like COM or CORBA you can change
implementation
   and interchange components without effects to clients.

 - think about a change from one-user-per-image to multiuser-per-image

 - integrate other languages into squeak
   Prolog is done, what about C/C++, ...
   Get squeak accepted in the developer community!
   Improve the multilanguage support (menue strings as interchangeable
resources, UNICODE, ...)

 - show people that we can also create serious applications

 - find a way to install/deinstall squeak programs with different versions

 - experiment with new ideas, get squeak accepted by teachers, universities,
industry, ...

 - reuse things that already been done
   UIUC Archive contains a lot of code!

 - interface with application data formats (for instance import all the
different image formats
   used on different platforms)

 - give people what they wanna have on their computer:
   text processing, a good webbrowser, paint programs, media, games,
communication, ...
   Get squeak accepted in the user community

 - motivate others to take part on the squeak development

 - speak about the things already done, write articles, books, websites, ...


Like Dan said "Let's Get Bizzy"

-Torsten