Mark Guzdial wrote:
> 
> There are already some versioning problems with the Squeak plugins,
> it seems to me.  Our ImgEd Swiki and Equation Editor plugin for
> Swikis are based on the U. Magdeburg plugin, which is incompatible
> with the Squeakland plugin.  Already, some of the Squeaklets on Bob's
> SuperSwiki only work with older Squeak versions.

Welcome to world of forks ;-)

Seriously, the plugin images have been trailing the mainstream Squeak
versions for a while mainly because nobody has set up an update stream
directed at them. Bert, Russel and I have setup plugin download pages
but they never where maintained that well (at least mine wasn't :-( ).

> Are there any plans for how to deal with the versioning/compatibility
> problems?  How can we build Squeaklets that will work across versions
> of the plugin?
Hopefully new versions of the plugin image will backward compatible, but
there always be glitches I'm afraid.

IMHO the best solution is to keep a somewhat stable version of the
plugin and make sure you develop Squeaklets that work on this know
common Squeaklet platform.
The Squeakland plugin could be this common Squeaklet platform, it will
maintain its own update stream and try to be reasonably backward
compatible.
As it is aimed at "end users" it will be more stable than the mainstream
Squeak but also always lacking some of the latest and greatest things in
the alpha/beta tester stream.

Although the Squeakland plugin is somewhat associated with the
Squeakland web site it is basically still a generic image with only a
couple of things turned off or removed. We are working on how to add the
removed/additional classes back in on demand, so the limitations of
current version are not forever.

> Are there any plans to put auto-updating into the base plugin images
> so that Squeaklets two years from now don't have to add a couple of
> Mb of source to update the (then) old and obsolete 3.1 image?  (But

The way Squeakland is working (will be working starting sometime today!!
:-) ) is that it checks for updates and gives the user the choice to run
the updates. It will also check for a new plugin vm and offer installers
when available.

Users downloading for the first time will always get a fully updated
image and plugin vm.

Michael