Hi,

Well, I've read the 246 messages that I collected during the
Great Modularity Debate (GMD) in addition to the info on various
Swikis for ModSqueak/Ginsu (Joseph Pelrine and Stephane Ducasse),
Oasis (Les Tyrrell), and Environments (Dan Ingalls and Henrik
Gedenryd). And, I have probably missed a few things along the way.

As far as I can tell, Dan Ingalls wants to "distribute active
Squeak content as projects on the Internet" which leads to
"modularity of projects" which in turn leads to a "component
architecture" for Squeak. Correct?

Other folks have noted the lack of any crisp definitions or
consensus for terms like "project", "package", "module", "creation",
or "component", much less terms like "component architecture",
"component framework", or "component backplanes". Clemens Szyperski
discusses many of these concepts at length in his book on Component
Software, but I'm having a hard time correlating Szyperski's book
with concepts and ideas discussed in the GMD.

Apparently, the general plan is to schlepp along and figure all
of this out as we go. Oey veh!

As engineers, scientists, and programmers, we tend to view
the world in terms of "projects". We are trained and educated in
this manner. In fact, some real engineers live their entire lives
as a string of interesting projects. <grin> Although I'm a
computer engineer, I usually don't think in terms of projects.

Whenever I want to do something, I usually head off the the
library, bookstore, or my basement bookcases, collect some books,
and spread them out on my workspace which also includes pens,
pencils, piles of papers, stickies, notepads, a computer,
some hot tea, and a little music. While I work on each small task
sequentially, I'm usually working upon a lot of different things
at once. Sometimes, I even work off the coffee table in the living
room or a lawn table on the deck in the back yard.

Books are my basic unit of information, knowledge, wisdom, and
understanding. Most books typically consist of a title, table of
contents, preface, introduction, a string of chapters, notes, and
an index all bound between two hard (or soft) covers. A book can
consist of several volumes. Sometimes books are divided into parts
or sections. But basically, books are made up of a string of
chapters. Books are collected into respositories called libraries
where they are classified according to some rigorous scheme so
mere mortals can easily find them. Squeak "projects" in Squeak 3.0
seem close to what I want in a book. There is even a construct
called a BookMorph.

So, why on earth would I want to modularize a book? How does
one modularize "Gone With The Wind", the Bible, "Lord Of The Rings"
or the Iliad? Why would somebody want to do so? How would one do
it even if they could?

I can just see myself going to a library to rummage around in
bins full of "chapters" (modules?), trying to collect enough of
these pieces that might help me with my work.

I thought that the primary purpose of Squeak was to create
dynamic books that would reside in a hardware device called a
DynaBook which could reach through to the Internet in order to
access huge libraries of dynamic books all over the world. Instead,
it sounds like folks are creating components for building projects
that reside in a hardware device called a DynaProject. IMHO, a
DynaBook and a DynaProject are not the same critter. No, not
at all. Please, help me out here.

Cheers, Roger.....

PS: I also don't see how children have a ghost of a chance when
it comes to manipulating components in any meaningful way when
highly educated engineers and scientists are having trouble
doing it. Likewise, Smalltalk may have been created with children
in mind, but it takes highly educated proferssionals to use
Smalltalk effectively. Likewise, my grandchild gives me lots of
stuff to hang on my refrigerator door, but in no sense is this
real, or serious, "art" or "literature", dynamic or otherwise.

PPS: To end this rant on a more positive note, I have no doubt
that highly educated and/or talented people will be able to create
dynamic books for "children of all ages", but this ain't kid's
stuff. :-) So, let's get back to worrying about DynaBooks, rather
than DynaProjects.