A final thoughtRe: Where Squeak is Headed [was: Module discussion]
Stephane Ducasse
ducasse at iam.unibe.ch
Fri Nov 8 14:36:38 UTC 2002
Hi dan and other,
I just want to react about the following paragraph
I think that you are not in cause for the failure of the module, nor
henrik. I think that we failed
but failing is not that a problem (even if henrik can be bitter now)
because we learned in the process.
I think that not throwing away the modules now would have been a big
mistake because they were obviously on the
way and hampering more than supporting the community.
I think that this was courageous for you to push the module in the
stream when there were (as the story proved it)
in a not so good state. I think that it helps the community to think in
terms of modules, packages
and other concepts. So we learned that is important. Now I wish a lot
of success to the next ones.
Stef
> Modules
> I have just read the summary of the SqueakBOF discussion sent out by
> Michael Rueger. Interestingly, this reflects the sentiments of Squeak
> Central as well. Moreover, as Michael mentioned, Scott Wallace, on
> whom the burden of the fork fell most heavily within SqC, has dealt
> quite carefully with most of the incompatibilities and, I believe,
> even has a working draft for a 3.4 image.
>
> Something needs to be said at this juncture. There are a number of
> reasons that the 3.3 run at modularization did not succeed. It
> retained the name space experiment from my work on Environments, it
> forced some changes that could have remained backward compatible, it
> was invasive against Les Tyrell's exhortation, it was not embraced by
> the rest of the community in spite of a courageous and intense push by
> Henrik Gedenryd. If any fault is to be ascribed for this particular
> false start, it should rest with me and not with Henrik. I have made
> mistakes before and I intend to go on making them, hopefully not all
> the time. Henrik put a huge amount of work into the project, for
> which he can feel proud, and I don't think anyone would fault the job
> he did within the context of the project. There is much to be
> salvaged both from the code and from the early experience of trying to
> modularize the Squeak image.
>
> Having learned a lesson, we have the opportunity to again choose a
> path to a more modular world. Examples exist in nearly every other
> mature Smalltalk, both of simple modules and more comprehensive
> packages. I would like to see a module system that was completely
> independent of the rest of Squeak, along the lines that Les Tyrell
> suggests. A move to life with SqueakMap should greatly encourage this
> property.
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