Smalltalk & Squeak featured on Slashdot

Tim Rowledge tim at sumeru.stanford.edu
Mon Apr 23 04:25:55 UTC 2001



> I'd like to have a better understanding of
>  - who is harmed by the present image size?  (what _kinds_ of users)
>  - how many people are harmed by the present image size?
>  - how badly are they harmed?
>  - in what ways are they harmed?
>  - are there any proposed solutions that would, over-all, do less harm?
Some possible answers I can imagine in response to these questions
a) who is harmed?
anyone wanting to use Squeak on small machine, especially an embedded
use with no virtual memory. Anyone that finds the vast extent of the
image intimidating, so much to gaze at! Anyone writing code that wants
to move it from one version image to another; so much to try to check
for changes that will affect it.
b) how many?
No idea. Putting tongue firmly into cheek (note to self ; stop chewing
on inner cheek, it's making a scar lump) I could suggest that all XX
million Palm  users are suffering, but they have a congenital problem in
the memory system anyway, so screw'em. 
c) how badly?
For the embedded/small machines, moderately - you can play with the
assorted shrinking stuff , but it gets tedious and is not terribly precise.
For people intimidated, possibly a lot. Some people get really worried
by the size of the system. Hell, I get vertigo sometimes and I've been
doing this longer than some countries have existed.
For code supporters, it can be really bad, enough to put them off
keeping code alive even. This potentially harms us all in some manner.
d) how are they harmed?
sorta answered above. 
e) solutions?
Mostly improvements in tools of various sorts.
Modularity can help massively; but it's not just chopping the system up,
it's making tools to help(force?) people to keep modules modular.
Modularity would probably make those dreadful forks unneccesary, since
you can get the system you want just by binding to the modules that give
it to you.
Change tracking tools and data would help a great deal with making it
easier to forward port code. The change file browser is a big help in
many respects, but it can't do much to help find moved code, track down
other changes that might affect you (by bypassing a method you were
depending on, for example) and other problems. I fall back on the normal
pathetic excuse of lack of time to examine Oasis to see how it might help.
One tool I imagine might help is a website(?) that an image can query to
find the _full_ history of a method/class/group of code/whatever, a bit
like a super-extended versions browser.
> 
> 
> While I affirm that Squeak's size is not out of line, compared with other
> programs and language implementation, there are many other reasons to want
> modularity. 
Once upon a time VisualWorks was considered a huge application, needing
extra memory, costing money to support etc. These days I doubt it
matches the sizes of the spelling checker assistant for Word. Didn't I
hear that Word 2002 was going to come on 2 DVD's?

^. .^
 ='=
tim





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