Hi all!

Has been down and out in the flu for a week, trying to catch up a bit.
I have skimmed this thread and will just write one posting.

"Andreas Raab" <andreas.raab at gmx.de> wrote:
> Tim wrote:
> >> b) I don't like the idea of MC in the base image.
> > What's your reasoning here? Do you not like MC, or is it too much code
> > to add, or do you have hopes for a different system to be emplaced
> > or.... ?
> 
> The mere fact of dumping all of the stuff into "basic" is what I don't like.
> It has nothing to with MC - just that we're going back right to where we
> started. Let's see:
> 
> Version    # of classes         # of methods
> 3.5              1811                 41444
> 3.6-basic        1338                 33303
> 3.7-basic        1544                 35548
> 3.8-basic        1652                 37703
> 3.9-basic        1700                 38861
> 
> Raise your hands if you see a pattern. If we add Monticello we get:
> 
> 3.9-basic+MC     1825                 40434
> 
> Finally we're on par with 3.5 again - which coincidentally was the version
> of Squeak where people complained bitterly about all the excess baggage that
> SqC had put into Squeak. So then we put VMMaker, Games, Celeste, Balloon3D,
> Wonderland, Scamper into packages. Only to replace them with m17n,
> SqueakMap, SUnit, Tests, (and soon) Monticello in basic.

Now, as others have pointed out the comparison is a bit... wrong. :)
Let us reiterate the plan:

- Minimal, this is the smallest image. It is what you get if you take
Basic and rips out the well packaged packages.
- Basic, this is "Minimal + basic development stuff". This is the image
the update stream is feeding.
- Full, this is "Basic + lots of fun cool stuff".

Ok... so the aim for Basic is not to be the smallest image. That is the
aim of Minimal. But Minimal is less visible today since it is not the
image being tracked by the update stream.
 
> In short, we really need to do something to make a "basic" image which
> actually deserves the name - if only to keep ourselves honest with respect
> to the modularity issues we have anyway. This is what I consider a "grave
> mistake" (actually "fallacy" is the right term to use) - the idea that you
> can dump all this stuff into the image and that adding "just a little more"
> code will make the problem go away.
> 
> [And yes, I do owe Goran an apology here - from the evolutionary point he 
> was exactly right with his insistance not to put anything in basic that 
> could be avoided]

Thanks. :) Note though that my resistance was against *changesets*
adding stuff into Basic - NOT adding stuff in good citizen packages.

My personal opinion is that MC should go into Basic - and in fact, I can
think of many other important packages that I would like to have there,
like Shout for example.

Also note that adding a package into Basic should inolve the primary
maintainer - it suddenly makes the package more important to keep in a
good shape. So the community can't just "decide" this. For MC Avi and
Colin needs to agree for example.

Finally, we need to do one more thing so that this gets clear:

We need to start packageing Minimal when making a release. That way we
force ourselves to make sure those packages can be cut out cleanly. And
yes, we need a Minimal-script just like we have a Full-script today.
 
> Cheers,
>   - Andreas

regards, Göran