[ENH][Modules] Delta Modules [was: Another version]

Edmund Ronald eronald at rome.polytechnique.fr
Mon Oct 29 12:42:02 UTC 2001


I seem to have forgotten to unsubscribe and this thread caught my eye. Oh
well. As a journo, my heart goes out not to developers but to users. So:

Among reasons for having modules two are obvious:
+ Facilitate  distribution: 
  Coders can release directly without reference to a central
  distributing authority. Users can shop around for the pieces they
  need.

+ Facilitate maintenance.
  Coders can amend their code without referring to a central maintaining
  authority. Users can upgrade modules incrementally during system life. 

In practice, the two conflict. Users get caught in DLL hell. Microsoft are
not entirely dumb, but they realised it too late because it is a scale
effect. The redhat people noticed the issues in upgrading Linux and tried
to fix them with the rpm database. It sold the distro, but ultimately
didn't work, just pushed back the problem by about 2 years, and then scale
effects caught up again, as soon as the number of sources for things
increased. Nowadays, with all these systems, people do a few
customisations, then throw away the fragments and re-install a whole new
boxful of toys again. The reason for the frequent release of complete
Linux systems, when Unix is inherently modular, has become the
certification by the vendor of coherent behavior of the whole.

I urge you, when analyzing this issue to look at the fundamental ways in
which all known approaches have failed. Solving your module problem now
for the existing handful of knowledgeable and sophisticated Squeak
users/developers may not be the same as solving it for a distribution
which has made it out of the lab into the wild.

Edmund








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