Goran and all,

> Btw, I only used "the guys in Berne" because I don't know a better 
> name for you guys! :-) It was not meant as an "insult".

Don't worry, I really never had a problem with this name ;)

> Ok. And just so that I don't forget - this work of yours is 
> very valuable. And I am not talking about Traits, I am 
> talking about your problems! We all want a better Squeak and 
> you are probably sitting with a lot of insight most of us don't have.

Of course!! :-) :-). No, seriously, I think that doing the traits
prototype implementation really gave me some insights regarding the
future steps. The most important one is what Andreas described in his
email (thanks a lot Andreas!): We just need to do some work on a few
aspects of Squeak to make it possible to add traits (and any similar
language extension) in a clean way. Otherwise, things just get messy no
matter how hard we try.

> Ok, so this means that we should not and probably will not 
> see Traits coming into Squeak core for quite some time 
> (because even if we go full steam ahead there's a lot of work to do).

There is probably no way around that. But I don't really see this as a
disadvantage. We just have to use the time well and make sure that we do
things step by step. Once we (the Berne guys) talked with Andreas, we
really want to go fast and we don't mind spending some time fixing and
cleaning some of the crucial aspects.

> Someone will have to do these things (surprise) and the 
> parser/scanner stuff might already be in the pipe since I 
> read that Anthony is thinking in moving the new Compiler in 
> this direction. But for the rest I have no idea - but why 
> should anyone be opposed to these things? Stephane has almost 
> sounded as if there is a resistance in the community and 
> AFAIK there is none. Again, this is probably unintentional of 
> Stephane and he just wanted to tell us about your different 
> "problems".

Yes, I think there were some misunderstanding. We just wanted to
communicate that Squeak (and probably many other STs) is not exactly in
the shape where it is possible to add language extensions such as traits
very easily. There are a couple of things that need to be tackled first.
We are willing to work on them, but this needs some time and therefore
we can't just pull a stable traits system with a wonderful browser out
of the blue.

> And then eventually I would like to see Traits enter core 
> Squeak. I think this would revitalize Squeak as a tool moving 
> into the future and not only being a mimic of some cool stuff 
> people did in the early 70s. Seriously.

I feel the exact same way. I love Smalltalk and I love Squeak, but I
also think that things can and should get better. And I when I say
better I certainly don't mean more complicated or more like C++ or Java
;-)

> And I would like to feel that the people working with Traits 
> consider Squeak both as the home of Traits but also as the 
> community where Traits grew and evolves.

Cool!

Nathanael


> -----Original Message-----
> From: squeak-dev-bounces at lists.squeakfoundation.org 
> [mailto:squeak-dev-bounces at lists.squeakfoundation.org] On 
> Behalf Of goran.hultgren at bluefish.se
> Sent: Sonntag, 16. Februar 2003 17:43
> To: The general-purpose Squeak developers list
> Subject: RE: Two important issues...
> 
> 
> Hi all!
> 
> =?iso-8859-1?Q?Nathanael_Sch=E4rli?= <n.schaerli at gmx.net> wrote:
> > Hi Goran,
> > 
> > > And then here we are, left with a system we don't understand,
> > > with a halfbaked new browser/parser etc. etc. That wouldn't 
> > > be good. It could all turn out similarly to 3.3alpha (even if 
> > > it would be partly due to other reasons) where we ended up 
> > > with a halfbaked system we couldn't move forward.
> > >
> > > So... please tell me that I am paranoid and that the above
> > > will not happen. :-)
> > 
> > I agree with you and I think it is very important to distinguish 
> > between a nice and very promising research model/prototype and a 
> > language extension for _real_ language like Squeak. At the moment, 
> > traits really are still on the prototype level and we have 
> still a lot 
> > more ideas of how to make an extended and much more poweful version.
> 
> Noted. So perhaps it was a bit early for me to set off this 
> discussion - but I did it because it really is an interesting 
> problem not only regarding Traits. It just happens to be the 
> best example. :-)
> 
> > Since the model of the current version is relatively 
> stable, it would 
> > of course be possible to take it and implement a productive 
> version of 
> > traits for Squeak right now. However, in order to do this right and 
> > clean, this would require a lot of preliminary work on the language 
> > kernel, the browser, etc. Once this were done, introducing traits 
> > would actually be _very_ simple: Remember that traits are 
> essentially 
> > just a group of methods that can be reused and shared between 
> > different classes. Since ST has the concept of first-class method 
> > dictionary, it is therefore nearly trivial to accomplish that!
> > 
> > This means that implementing traits in the right way on a 
> clean basis 
> > really does not make the system much more complicated, and everyone 
> > who understands the current kernel can easily understand 
> the extended
> 
> Sounds reassuring.
> 
> > kernel. However, this is only partially true for the 
> current prototype 
> > implementation. This has several reasons: I didn't quite 
> now where I 
> > was going when I started and therefore I definitely didn't always 
> > choose the best design decisions. And even if I knew what 
> would be the 
> > best thing to do, I sometimes didn't do so just because it was not 
> > worth the effort for the prototype implementation I needed for my 
> > research. However, one of the main issues definitely was that there 
> > are so many places where I had trouble with existing parts 
> of Squeak. 
> > Whether it was the parser, the kernel, the browser, it sometimes 
> > really prevented me from doing things the way they actually 
> should be.
> 
> Ok. And just so that I don't forget - this work of yours is 
> very valuable. And I am not talking about Traits, I am 
> talking about your problems! We all want a better Squeak and 
> you are probably sitting with a lot of insight most of us don't have.
> 
> > Of course, I could have spent some time to fix or rewrite 
> these parts 
> > first, but I simply didn't have the time for all of that. 
> And this is
> 
> No, of course not.
> 
> > exactly what Stef tried to communicate:
> > 
> > If the Squeakers at one point want to have traits (and all 
> its tools 
> > such as the browser and the realtime code analysis) in 
> their language, 
> > it just is _necessary_ to clean up certain essential parts of the 
> > system first. And this is not because the "guys of Berne" 
> say it, it 
> > is simply because this is the _only_ way of getting a clean, stable 
> > and well-understandable language.
> 
> I understand this, and so does hopefully we all. Btw, I only 
> used "the guys in Berne" because I don't know a better name 
> for you guys! :-) It was not meant as an "insult".
> 
> > In this case, I'm 100% certain that the nightmare you are afraid of 
> > (i.e., having a half-baked and buggy system noone understands) will 
> > _not_ happen. In the opposite, I'm sure that having a clean 
> basis with 
> > traits would even make everything more understandable.
> 
> Also sounds good.
> 
> > But at the same time, more than a year of experience in 
> implementing 
> > the current traits prototype in Squeak taught me that just 
> "hacking" 
> > traits onto a messy and unclean basis may be enough for a research 
> > prototype, but it is not at all the right thing for 
> creating a system 
> > people actually use for real work. And again, this is exactly what 
> > Stef wants to communivate when he says that Squeak needs to 
> move a bit 
> > in order to be ready for stable and clean traits, and it is 
> also the 
> > reason why it needs more work than many people think in order to 
> > convert the traits prototype implementation into a stable 
> version. The 
> > current implementation really is a prototype and it is not 
> ready for 
> > prime time.
> 
> Ok, so this means that we should not and probably will not 
> see Traits coming into Squeak core for quite some time 
> (because even if we go full steam ahead there's a lot of work to do).
> 
> But... we *do* still need to decide if we want to move in 
> this direction and how to do it:
> 
> We all want a better browser, a better parser/scanner/AST 
> whatever and a clean kernel.
> 
> Someone will have to do these things (surprise) and the 
> parser/scanner stuff might already be in the pipe since I 
> read that Anthony is thinking in moving the new Compiler in 
> this direction. But for the rest I have no idea - but why 
> should anyone be opposed to these things? Stephane has almost 
> sounded as if there is a resistance in the community and 
> AFAIK there is none. Again, this is probably unintentional of 
> Stephane and he just wanted to tell us about your different 
> "problems".
> 
> So I think this boils down to if you want to play together 
> with us in the community or not. I mean, if Traits enter 
> Squeak as a "core" package then it will not be "yours" 
> anymore to do with whatever you please.
> 
> But lets say we get these things fixed together. What then? I 
> am still wondering about where Traits would "end up" in the 
> different groupings of packages and I am still wondering what 
> this means - is Squeak not Smalltalk anymore? And does it 
> matter? It will still be some form of superset of Smalltalk I presume.
> ---
> 
> Ok, perhaps the above thoughts weren't that structured. In 
> short I (me, Göran that is) would like us to all cooperate in 
> getting the core pieces done right (browser, compiler, 
> kernel) - regardless of Traits. That is simply about doing 
> things right.
> 
> And then eventually I would like to see Traits enter core 
> Squeak. I think this would revitalize Squeak as a tool moving 
> into the future and not only being a mimic of some cool stuff 
> people did in the early 70s. Seriously.
> 
> And I would like to feel that the people working with Traits 
> consider Squeak both as the home of Traits but also as the 
> community where Traits grew and evolves.
> 
> regards, Göran
> 
>