Squeaklets: the bigger picture

Jeff Szuhay jeffs at pstnet.com
Tue Feb 8 20:18:01 UTC 2000


We currently use "Goodies" as fileIn enhancers.
It appears that some kind of plug-in mechanism is being
worked on to provide some level of looser coupling between
the Squeak VM and the plug-in and tighter cohesion within
the plug-in.

Okay, I'm still a newbie to Squeak but there are a couple
of things that concern me.

One side of my brain likes the dynamic, ever changing nature
of Squeak/SmallTalk VM. The other side side cringes at this chaos
and is fearful of the indeterminate nature of the Squeak VM.
It asks, "will this fileIn always work the same way in everyone's
VM?" with some trepidation. And what happens when one
person has X set of fileIns while another has an overlapping
set Y, yet a third has a disjoint set Z?

Is it true that fileIns, since they modify the VM, are  more like
VM patches while plug-ins because they are separate, are real
extensions?

So, apart from the nomenclature, are the roles for plug-ins versus
fileIns distinct and clear? Should they be?

8-)
--
    *************************************************
    Jeff Szuhay                <mailto:jeffs at pstnet.com>
    Lead Macintosh Engineer    voice: 412/271-5040 x 227
    Psychology Software Tools  <http://www.pstnet.com/>





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