Hi!

Benoit St-Jean <bstjean at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Okay guys!
> 
> After reading a zillion posts, I decided I'd put my 2
> cents in the discussion.
> 
> Obviously, just by looking at the names on this list,
> there's a huge amount of talent and brain in the
> Squeak community.  How come we can't come up with
> something?  How come we can't figure out a decent
> solution for sharing, code submission, Squeak
> direction, etc.
>
> There's a lot of communities out there and a lot of
> them are friendly environments for sharing,
> collaboration and good places for individual opinions
> and projects.  I think we should probably imitate one
> that works...
> 
> How come can't we have something like the Ruby
> repository, Debian, CPAN or the Cincom community with
> StORE.  And do we really need only one direction for
> Squeak?  Do we really need a rigid procedure for code
> submission?

Wait a minute! SM is exactly the thing that Debian/CPAN is.
And Monticello/DVS is probably forming the basis for our StORE.

Avi and I are right this minute hooking up Monticello with SqCVS so that
we can get a rudimentary remote "channel" for packages.

We *are* working on these things! And there are also plans for a vastly
different harvesting scheme built on top of the things I just mentioned.

> I'd say we work on establishing the limits of the base
> image and let people attach their own goodies on top
> of it, just like VW.  And just like VW, if your stuff
> is good enough, people will love it and use it a lot
> and it will eventually be included in what's
> considered the base image.
> 
> Let's work on splitting the image, not the community!

Eh, but that is exactly what we *are doing*! :-) But you know that of
course.

> Like most people here, I just want to code and enjoy
> Squeak!  Do I really care about Squeak direction?  Yes
> and no.  I'm doing a lot of database stuff while some
> people are using Squeak for multimedia, others use
> Comanche/Seaside etc.  Obviously, whatever we decide
> for the next Squeak, there's going to be a lot of
> unhappy people.  We're a democracy so I'll go with

Oh thank you, thank you. At least one that also feels like I do. :-)

> whatever the majority decides, even though it might no
> please me.  Just like Cincom, IBM, Object Arts or
> Persist AG can push their product in a new direction
> and I can't say a word.
> 
> I'd also say that the next thing we need is a good
> StORE/ENVY/Monticello tool for code management.  I f
> we want to do serious code sharing, base image
> stripping, manage multiple conflicting code
> submissions, we need a serious tool quick or get a
> dozen more harvesters!

We are as I said working on it. On different fronts.
Parts of the puzzle are:

SM - The upcoming SM1.1 will make things MUCH better.
DVS/Monticello - Avi simply rocks. DVS is brilliant and it can only get
better.
SAR - Very nice general packager.
SqCVS (possibly beneath Monticello to start with)

...and a few other upcoming things when SM1.1 is on stage.

But anyway, thank you for showing me that I am not all off base. :-)

regards, Göran