On Dec 12, 2004, at 7:36 PM, Josh Gargus wrote:
> You are speaking of the expectation failure of someone who used 3.6 in 
> class, and later downloads 3.7 and finds that Wonderland doesn't work? 
>  This is a valid point; this we should strive to avoid this.

That, but also the expectation failure of reading the OOPSLA paper or 
one of the books, and decides to explore Squeak for, say, computer 
music exploration.  But what if the music packages aren't working 
anymore?  Is it a priority to keep the SampledSound hierarchy working? 
MIDI?

> I understand where you're coming from, but this seems a bit of an 
> extreme reaction to a bug in Wonderland that required a 1-line fix (or 
> are there other multimedia features of Squeak that are also broken?).

My comments are more based on Stef's response that he couldn't try the 
fixes yet because Wonderland isn't part of his image and he didn't know 
if he could load it.  What else isn't part of the image anymore?  
That's the expectation failure that I'm talking about -- what  happens 
to newcomers who are expecting everything in "Worlds of Squeak" to 
work, but find that it's not included in whatever the current version 
of "Squeak" is?

I don't want to get in the way of Stef's efforts at all!  I think that 
what his group is working on sounds excellent.  (I haven't figured out 
my way around all these new tools to do anything with them yet.)  I'm 
trying to protect an aspect of Squeak that I'm concerned is getting 
lost -- but I don't want MAINTAINING that aspect of Squeak to be a 
hindrance for Stef's team.

Call the new version "Squeak 4.0" and put a note on the website "If you 
want Squeak as a high-level multimedia playhouse, download a 3.0 image, 
or wait until we get to 5.0.  4.0 is going to be about making an 
amazing base image, and we can't guarantee that all the media features 
will work during this transitional time."  Then the expectation is made 
clear, the media folk can still play, and the community of

> Squeak has the potential to reach many millions, or even billions of 
> people, but not if gratuitously forked.  If there were deep 
> architectural changes that made it difficult to "port" the multimedia 
> apps forward, then I might be in favor of either one of your 
> proposals.  However, it seems that the required fixes are very small 
> and easy.

If you're right, and the fixes do get made, then my worries are 
baseless.  But the fact that things like Wonderland aren't getting 
tested and are getting pulled out suggests that the current community 
isn't aimed at supporting the media right now.

Stef, I do think that we have a similar sense of community.  I'm 
reacting to the current community's emphases and values.  They want to 
create a fabulous base image.  That's what the emphasis should now be, 
then.  *DON'T* try to keep the media going.  Yes, Diego didn't get 
support for his cool new UI -- that suggests that the active members of 
the community right now aren't there.  The active members of the 
community right now are in favor of your 3.9 roadmap.  TAKE THAT ROAD!  
Just be sure to leave markers for those who travel on your road and 
have different, older expectations.

> Isn't that what the Squeakland image is for?  That seems to be where 
> much of the development in that area goes on.

Squeakland is aimed at a different kind of user than someone who might 
read the NuBlue book and want to hack Squeak.  Squeakland doesn't 
include Wonderland, and discourages editing text methods directly.

That's the level where I mostly play at. I've never been good at 
grokking the VM and the base classes, but the ideas of eToys and 
multimedia collaboration on TOP of all the media already there is why I 
started squeaking.  I don't think I've ever used a block in such a way 
that it mattered if it were a closure or not.  I'm perfectly okay with 
sticking with 3.7 and not trying to follow Squeak into 4.X realm, 
because I don't grok all that and can't really contribute.  If Squeak 
5.X starts to bring back a media emphasis, I can join back then.

Mark

__________
Mark Guzdial : Georgia Tech : College of Computing/GVU
Atlanta, GA 30332-0280
Collaborative Software Lab, http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/csl
http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~mark.guzdial/