Hi all!

Martin Wirblat <sql.mawi at t-link.de> wrote:
> Göran,
> 
> just one short note for now. You are completely missing the roots of the 
> discussion and you are proposing a process which can't work. What you 
> describe is a system without synchronization, a project without teamwork.

Ok, two statements that you claim to be true and I contest. I do not
think I missed the roots of the discussion and I do not think I proposed
a process at all - I just explained how it works.
 
> If there is a part of a project on which all other parts depend, and 
> someone working on this part makes changes on it and communicates them 
> SO THAT other parts of development are slowing down disproportionally, 
> then overall efficiency decreases. Without proper communication it may 
> even happen that part of the changes themselves are inferior.

And what parts are you in fact talking about? IMHO the parts that we all
depend on are maintained carefully and with a lot of discussion and
thought. The Squeakers involved in those parts really want to do the
best job they can and *are aware* of the trickyness involved. Eggs break
though. I am very interested in hearing what experiences you are
referring to.

> To put this into the right view we have to think about the question: Who 
> will use Squeak? and not: What do I personally like?

No. :) In fact - we do not *have* to do anything. Open source just
doesn't work that way, not in my experience.
Everyone focus on what they personally like and that is *all right*.

> or: What may this 
> community like? Serving the biggest group will grow and therefore 
> advance Squeak the most and at the end of the day benefit each of us the 
> most.

Nope. :) There simply is no incentive for us to try to "serve the
biggest group".
My motivation for working on Squeak is not to attract as many people as
possible. Definitely not.
It is to make Squeak the most exquisite computing tool that I can
imagine *for my needs*.

> For every current Squeaker with his or her very special interests, there 
> are 100 times more ordinary application programmers and 1000 times more 
> ordinary computer users. The very sad part of this is, that Squeak did 
> not yet entered the terrain of the former.

I don't agree that it is sad at all. I don't want to compete with VB or
some other crappy thing.

> These two groups of potential users, which dwarf by their sheer number 
> of people the current Squeak community, have some difficulties with 
> viewing Squeak as something really interesting.
> 
> For the application programmer who is using VisualBasic etc it is mainly 
> the lack of:
> - speed
> - flexible and elegant GUI-library with a visual building facility
> - small footprint of the image
> - documentation
> 
> The normal computer user misses directly or indirectly the same things 
> and additionally applications. Application programmer! Even more 
> interesting to this group could be a whole new paradigm of software, 
> something which is not only a clone of the M$ world, a niche in which 
> Squeak could dramatically grow.
> 
> Back to the development process. These other parts under development I 
> talked of, which are deemed to be slowed down disproportionally, are 
> among the things that are interesting to the rest of the world. They are 
> Squeak's biggest chance! Having that in mind the word disproportional 
> seems to be moderate. We have some huge discrepancy here!

What discrepancy? I am lost.

> Given the importance of these other parts you can conclude that this 
> story is not over yet, and I guess you know that.

Don't follow.

> With stepping in the 
> footsteps of someone pushing and shouting you will not solve this.

Eh, I got sick of people being negative and being accusative. It doesn't
help.
So yes - I took the liberty to use come CAPS to bring my point home. I
thought it needed to be said - and your post just reinforces that
feeling.

> I 
> know you try to do the best and you surely thought about how to write 
> this post, but your choice of this style seems to be totally wrong. The 
> "communication attempt" of pushing and shouting has already done much 
> harm to Squeak, the biggest part of it probably invisible.

Well, sometimes it can clear the air a bit. Those of use doing work here
are doing the best we can.
And that is all.

> Regards,
> Martin

regards, Göran