On Sat, 2003-03-01 at 00:43, Swan, Dean wrote:
> If you only set dates and no goals, Squeak is less likely to get assigned a 
> priority in people's daily lives, and the date may arrive with nothing new 
> to release.
> 
Well, if you define 'goal' as something you want to accomplish with
Squeak, as opposed as 'target' - I define it here as a goal you want to
have completed by a certain date - that's fine.

A goal is to modularize Squeak. It will very likely not be accomplished
in a single release. Another goal is to document it. Goals typically
shift, in reaction to the environment. 

And I don't believe that a date will arrive with nothing new to release
if you don't set explicit targets for a release. In a quarterly release
cycle, postponing your work (missing the current deadline) will mean
almost half a year delay, immediately. 

Furthermore, I'm not saying that we should stick with this regime
forever - see it as a 'therapy' against:
- slipping release dates and thereby uncertainty with outsiders what is
happening with Squeak;
- a rusty release process - with a strict quarterly schedule, you get
into a rythm and the whole process can be smoothed out quickly;
- to a lesser extent, protection against 'too big' releases that have
the associated risk of breakage. 
As I said, my experience is that it helps tremendously; my experience is
usually with weekly or fortnightly release cycles, but that's clearly to
short for Squeak.
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