On Dec 14, 2004, at 3:46 PM, Michael Latta wrote:
>
> So you can ask Stephane all you want to work on multi-media, but that 
> is not an option (from comments posted earlier).  Wishing will not 
> make that so.  This is not uncaring, just reality.  If there are 
> programmers willing and able to work on multi-media aspects, they will 
> need to adjust to a changing core, or they can argue that the core is 
> fine, and needs no changes.  As I see it either Stephane and company 
> can either improve the core of Squeak, with others helping for the 
> multi-media changes, or they will be forced to start a separate 
> Smalltalk project, and the Squeak community risks losing not just 
> them, but those that are interested in the core more than multi-media. 
>  If that happens, the core could stagnate, and so on.  I applaud 
> Stephane and company for coming back to working with this community, 
> and Andreas for questioning how to keep the multi-media aspects 
> functional and improving as well.  If the multi-media types bail that 
> is the same as a fork, it is just a silent one.
>

I'm not asking Stephane to work on the multimedia. I'm just saying, if 
you are going to work on the core, do it in a way so that the 
multimedia stuff is included in your vision. Personally I'm interested 
in seeing the evolution of the core AND of multimedia: a solid core 
means benefits for the multimedia side. And as I mentioned uplist, 
Stef's core changes could be of great benefit to Squeak. But at the end 
of the day, the multimedia features are what make Squeak Squeak, and in 
my opinion a core developer should keep these multimedia aspects in 
mind, and ensure their integrity, if he is developing Squeak itself. 
(If he is using Squeak a basis for some other kind of Smalltalk, that's 
different.)

My message was intended to provide a bit of vision and focus for 
Squeakers as a team, coming from a "what will end users think Squeak 
is" standpoint, because the list seems to be moving its focus from the 
multimedia stuff to Monticello and other things, when it comes to 
decisions like what goes into base and what doesn't; and what breaks 
when Stef tries to implement his changes. It was not intended to tell 
Stef or anyone else what to work on.

--Jeff